Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #555378 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-03
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this brisk biography, Donald, former editor-in-chief of Harvard University Press, ascribes Teddy Roosevelt's popularity to his combination of charisma and substance; he was an electrical, magnetic speaker, according to one contemporary newspaper account, and he hit themes that resonated with ordinary folks, such as honesty in government and opportunity for all. In the White House, Roosevelt established a model of positive, active governance and insisted that the president was more powerful than any business tycoon. Donald pays particular attention to Roosevelt's pioneering conservancy efforts, and she suggests that one of his most important acts was to appoint Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to the Supreme Court. Donald also touches on the personal: his grief when his first wife died, and his passionate love for his second wife, with whom he set a new standard for presidential domestic life, entertaining with a gusto unmatched until the Kennedys. The book is refreshingly slim, but sometimes—as in the brief discussion of Roosevelt's appointments of African-Americans to government jobs—one wishes for more. Indeed, there's not much here that readers won't find in other studies of Roosevelt, but Donald's swift prose makes this a satisfying read. Photos. History Book Club main selection.(Nov.)
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Review
"Aida Donald's elegant and affectionate portrait of Theodore Roosevelt is less a biography--although it provides a perceptive account of the events of his life--than a masterful essay on idealism and power, and on the complicated relationship between the two. There are many studies of Theodore Roosevelt, but everyone interested in the man should read this beautifully written and deeply intelligent book." -- Alan Brinkley

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Don't try to cram TR into limited modern political boxes
I always enjoy a read about TR and the original works OF TR, since he's a genuine hero. Lion in the White House is a good, solid, basic biography which adds very little to the scholarship of the extensive biographies of the past decade. The unique thing I really got from it is a reasonable interpretation of TR's intervention in the 1902 Anthracite Strike, reasonable being defined as I agree with it and it's a noble conclusion. (I have a strong Progressive bent. I'm allowed to. It's America - the America that TR believed in and worked for.) Edmund Morris's The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, and the (hopefully) to-be-written volume about the post-presidential years remain the gold standard of TR bio's, and H.W. Brands' TR: The Last Romantic runs a close second. Lion in the White House is a great place to start study of TR. The Library of America has published a volume called Theodore Roosevelt: Letters and Speeches, which gives thinking people some original source matter to read for themselves. One recommended and fun (if quirky) TR tome is My Last Chance to be a Boy, by Joseph Ornig, which is a detailed account of the 1913 - 14 Brazilian expedition.
The Democrats and Republicans of 1900 wouldn't recognize the parties of today. TR's policies and passions were not shaped around tired but limited modern menus of the stereotypical "right" and "left." For example, he was for open immigration, which would displease many today. He also strongly believed that immigrants needed to speak English and become Americans, rather than something hyphenated, which would displease the rest of modern politicos. Get a grip, we're not going to bring America forward by wrapping ourselves in emptiness, we need to actually READ TR's advice and get off our collective butts, THINK, REASON and ACT:
"It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds."

A Frustrating Reading Experience
Please think twice before you waste your money on this biography.
It is an often irritation and annoying reading experience that is only comparable to an insipid, opinionated high school history textbook. This so-called "scholarly and academic" work by a writer with impressive credentials on paper has no footnotes, endnotes or a detailed bibliography. As a result the many questionable and provocative statements of historical fact and controversial interpretations of T.R's motivation by the author cannot be easily checked without recourse to other historical works.
I shuddered to think of the consequences if a graduate student had presented this weak effort as a thesis! Stick to Edmund Morris or H.W. Brands if you are looking for a real biography of T.R.

TR redux
For the many people who admire Theodore Rossevelt for his belief that corporations have a civic responsiblity to American citizens, new books on this icon of progressivism are always welcome. It is important, however, to temper one's affection for TR with expectations of scholarship, and when one does so, Donald's book fails to satisfy. Compared to the Morris two-volume biography, Donald's book lacks sufficient detail to be classified as a legitimate biography; instead, it seems to be a simple encomium. Serious readers will not learn anything that they did not already know about TR, and they may be offended by the book's shallow treatment. This book might be suitable for a junior high student as an introduction to TR, but it has little merit for a more adult audience.