The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE AND THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time “A towering biography . . . a brilliant chronicle.”—Time This classic biography is the story of seven men—a naturalist, a writer, a lover, a hunter, a ranchman, a soldier, and a politician—who merged at age forty-two to become the youngest President in history. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt begins at the apex of his international prestige. That was on New Year’s Day, 1907, when TR, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, threw open the doors of the White House to the American people and shook 8,150 hands. One visitor remarked afterward, “You go to the White House, you shake hands with Roosevelt and hear him talk—and then you go home to wring the personality out of your clothes.” The rest of this book tells the story of TR’s irresistible rise to power. During the years 1858–1901, Theodore Roosevelt transformed himself from a frail, asthmatic boy into a full-blooded man. Fresh out of Harvard, he simultaneously published a distinguished work of naval history and became the fist-swinging leader of a Republican insurgency in the New York State Assembly. He chased thieves across the Badlands of North Dakota with a copy of Anna Karenina in one hand and a Winchester rifle in the other. Married to his childhood sweetheart in 1886, he became the country squire of Sagamore Hill on Long Island, a flamboyant civil service reformer in Washington, D.C., and a night-stalking police commissioner in New York City. As assistant secretary of the navy, he almost single-handedly brought about the Spanish-American War. After leading “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders” in the famous charge up San Juan Hill, Cuba, he returned home a military hero, and was rewarded with the governorship of New York. In what he called his “spare hours” he fathered six children and wrote fourteen books. By 1901, the man Senator Mark Hanna called “that damned cowboy” was vice president. Seven months later, an assassin’s bullet gave TR the national leadership he had always craved. His is a story so prodigal in its variety, so surprising in its turns of fate, that previous biographers have treated it as a series of haphazard episodes. This book, the only full study of TR’s pre-presidential years, shows that he was an inevitable chief executive. “It was as if he were subconsciously aware that he was a man of many selves,” the author writes, “and set about developing each one in turn, knowing that one day he would be President of all the people.”

Short Review: This really is good. It is more of a 4.5 star book than 4, but not quite a 5. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is very readable. It runs from his birth until the assassination of McKinley. There are two more books to round out the trilogy of biographies.

I was surprised when I looked it up to see that this biography is nearly 40 years old. It does not feel at all dated.

Roosevelt is a fascinating character, although with full of blind spots and quite self centered. But also with enormous reserves of energy and drive.

The two main weaknesses in the biography was, especially in the younger years, to be a bit too cute about what Roosevelt would become. We are reading about him at the end of his life knowing what he would become and that feels like it too strongly influenced how the discussion of how he grew up and developed.

Second, this may be about the era the book was written, but while there is a lot of discussion about Roosevelt's personal morality and ethics, there was virtually no discussion about religious or other motivations about where that morality and ethics were derived from and why it was important to him. The only reference I can think of to Roosevelt's specific religious life was a reference to him being married in a Unitarian church and that he was a sunday school teacher for a while. But I have no idea whether he was a unitarian or a more orthodox Christian or if faith was even important to him.

Maybe his religious motivation and ethics were actually unimportant, but the it feels like knowing more about that would have given some insights into his blind spots. (He was for instance relatively progressive on issues of women's rights and rights for african americans but not for Native Americans until later in life and not for non-Americans, for instance the Cubans that he was relating to during the Spanish American war.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/theodore-roosevelt/

Update: 1/26/2021
In my journey to read one biography on each President, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris was one book that I was excited to read, mostly because of how Morris would recount Roosevelt's life from boyhood until he becomes President. A few years ago, I tried to read this independently of my little Presidential reading project. Back then, I gave this book five stars, and I even put it on my top ten list of that year. One scene that stood out to me at the time was how Morris described Roosevelt in college, as it was fun seeing the reaction of his classmates to how much he exercised both his mind and body. Now, having read it all the way through, my opinion has changed, and I would not say for the better.

One of the major strengths is the description of Roosevelt as a person and his accomplishments. He is someone who a reader can like no matter what side of the political aisle they are on. Roosevelt was an avid hunter and believed in the right to own firearms, yet he was also Police Commissioner for the city of New York. He loved the outdoors, and yet also grew up and lived in one of the most populous cities in the world. Roosevelt was Harvard educated and grew up in a wealthy household, yet loved his time on his ranch working out west, and also knew how to speak plainly to many of New York's least educated citizens. In short, there is something for everyone to like about him. If I would have to describe Teddy's political personality in one sentence, I would say he was as combative as Andrew Jackson, but more sensible when it came to who and what he was going to fight. As opposed to Andrew Jackson who took everything personally (for example, the bank of the United States), Roosevelt chose to fight for the good of the people he worked for. One example of this would be when he was a New York State legislature, and he fought for the Civil Service Commission to help end the Spoils System of appointing people in government positions. He saw this as a horrible way to run the government, and saw Civil Service reform as a way to end much of the corruption that was an accepted part of life at this time. Morris is an excellent author who uses his extensive research to display all of the hardships Roosevelt faced, political and otherwise, to the reader.

But there are also times where Roosevelt's political hardships are explored in too much detail. Whenever an author stretches the life of someone out into three copious volumes, even the smallest argument is thoroughly inspected. Morris is no exception to this rule, as he analyses the many different people, places, and things that Roosevelt did in his early life, including the major and minor political conflicts he had before he became President. Many readers will find this fascinating and will revel in the conflicted life of Roosevelt. I am not one of those people. Instead, there were many times where I considered the challenges Roosevelt faced as tedious and inconsequential. But this is a highly subjective opinion, and you could love this amount of detail. Just something to keep in mind.

One thing that the reader must also consider is how Morris writes his books without much context. He will often write about people involved in Roosevelt's life, going as far as to poetically describe their physical characteristics, but then he will become excessively vague when describing historical events. For an example of domestic policy, take the slums and poverty of the urban poor in New Work during the 1800's. Morris will not describe for you how these people lived these conditions beyond a sentence or two, instead focusing on how this pertains to Roosevelt. Another example when it comes to foreign policy is the United States interest in the Philippines and Cuba. If the reader does not know that the US is interested in these countries, then they will not learn why through Morris' book. They are simply introduced to show how Roosevelt felt about the rising conflict and little else.

Another element to consider is the readability of this text. It was published in the 70's and the language feels like it, with terms that the reader may not recognize, leading to the cadence and language creating awkward sentences, sometimes making it difficult to read. As a word to the wise, I suggest having a dictionary beside you as you read, just in case.

Despite my reservations, I think that this is text that you should explore if you want a well detailed account of Theodore Roosevelt's early life. The issues that I had with this book are far outweighed by its display of Roosevelt's early character that shows the President he would become. I give it a four out of five.

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This book was awesome! I have to admit that I was not able to finish it before it had to go back to the library, but don't let that hold you back from reading this. It was simply too long, and I had to many other commitments to finish it before it had to go back. I will end up buying this book and finishing it at a later date.

This text was simply amazing! Morris has the ability to write history as though you are reading a story, which is something that I have seen very few people be able to do. Perhaps this is because he has such a great man to work off of. Teddy Roosevelt was a man who did everything under the sun and then some, in terms of either a passion or a career. He was a man who could be at home both in a library studying and out in the Forrest studying birds. He was a governor, and a police officer, and eventually a US President.

Morris' work allows the reader to explore Teddy's life with ease. He has a way of writing that made me not even think that I was reading non-fiction. I can totally understand who this book has gotten onto so many Award lists. It is simply amazing. I will be buying this book, and the other's in the series. If you want a complete picture of TR, then there is no other biography I can suggest. I give it a high five out of five.

The audio book version of this book is excellent; the narrator adopts Teddy Roosevelt's voice when reading excerpts from letters, interviews, etc. and really brings the President to life. Of course, Edmund Mortis is to be credited for such a thorough and interesting account of TR's early life and delves into this larger-than-life man filled with contradictions.