Theodore Rex
by Edmund Morris
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Book Summary Information
Author: Edmund MorrisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-10-01
ISBN: 0812966007
Number of pages: 792
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Theodore Rex
Book Review: A Bully Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
THEODORE REX, Edmund Morris' second volume in a planned three volume biography of TR, begins seamlessly where THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT ended: At the pinnacle of Mount Marcy, highest point of New York State with TR looking west toward Buffalo, where the mortally wounded William McKinley lay dying.
THEODORE REX begins with TR climbing down a mountain in motion toward the White House and it ends with TR on a train in motion away from the White House. The intervening 600 pages are a study in constant motion, as the youngest President of the United States became the catalyst of world-altering change. The United States entered his first term as a provincial hemispheric democracy; it exited his last term as a cosmopolitan world superpower. Much of the reason for that was TR by himself, who dragged the rest of the country (including an often-recalcitrant Congress) behind him, a comet and its tail.
Unlike THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT, which focused powerfully on the personal elements which formed this extraordinary man, THEODORE REX is less a biography of TR during his Presidency as it is a biography OF his Presidency. The Roosevelt family, so crucial to him, are largely relegated to the background; only his wife Edith and his daughter Alice are fully fleshed out in these pages, Alice somewhat more so than her stepmother (despite the reputed influence that "Edie" had on so many of TR's decisions). This seems an odd lacuna, but a footnote buried in the back refers the reader to (Mrs. Edmund) Sylvia Morris's biography of Edith Roosevelt for a fully-formed picture of family influence upon the President.
For the reader, THEODORE REX is more remote and dignified than the young "Teedie" Roosevelt who was a-rising, but that may be as much the result of Morris's necessary reliance on "official" records and the nature of Presidential hautre, as much as any element in Roosevelt himself during this era in his life.
This short shrift aside, Morris does a splendid job of recreating the halcyon era of the first President Roosevelt. He was a man far ahead of his time, concerned with race relations, conservation, foreign affairs, and controlling the untrammeled growth of monopolies. Morris's scholarship of TR's two terms is exhaustive. The endnotes form a small book, and are interesting, in themselves.
Roosevelt made errors (he invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House, inflaming Dixie passions to a fever pitch just as he took office, and later dismissed a Black regiment at Brownsville, Texas en masse for insurrection on highly questionable, highly incomplete evidence, setting a destructive precedent in African-American relations with the Federal government), and was often tactless, both with some more conservative sectors of the public who began to think him a madman, and with members of Congress, some of whom grew to hate him outright: "Nobody likes him except the voters."
But Roosevelt was also the most dynamic of the Presidents, excepting Lincoln and his own cousin FDR, in that he dramatically expanded the powers of the Presidency and the influence of the Federal government in regulating business and the economy. Laws establishing general labor standards and health standards were passed (often by main force) during his time. These laws, collectively the "Square Deal," were the underpinnings of FDR's New Deal three decades later. He created the Panama Canal, the technological miracle of the age.
Roosevelt delayed the start of the First World War by brokering a peace between Russia and Japan (winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts), by masterminding the Algeciras Conference between the European Powers, and by creating a new United States Navy of all-steel battleships, the Great White Fleet.
TR enjoyed being President. He was a genial, playful, childlike, and sophisticated renaissance man with a golden heart, a sense of noblesse oblige, and the force of temperament needed to lead the United States into the twentieth century. It was impossible not to have an opinion about TR. As one observer said, "You meet him, go home, and wring the personality out of your clothes."
Some of TR's problems sound strangely familiar and modern: He worked to curb the growing self-interested economic, social and political power of Trusts, those giant corporations that controlled the American economy (some still do). He engaged in gunboat diplomacy with a Middle Eastern government over the fate of an American hostage. He squabbled with the conservatives in his own Republican Party about the bounds and balance of power. He faced economic crises that put Wall Street at risk. His was the first modern Presidency.
His answers to the problems of the day were moral and ethical and offered America a new vision of itself. He saw the White House as "a bully pulpit" to address the American people. He led by his own example and by his own convincing arguments. Morris clearly adores his subject, but it would be hard not to find such a man engaging.
It would not be stretching the point too far to say that our present leadership could learn a few things from emulating Theodore Roosevelt.
Summary of Theodore Rex
Theodore Rex is the story?never fully told before?of Theodore Roosevelt?s two world-changing terms as President of the United States. A hundred years before the catastrophe of September 11, 2001, ?TR? succeeded to power in the aftermath of an act of terrorism. Youngest of all our chief executives, he rallied a stricken nation with his superhuman energy, charm, and political skills. He proceeded to combat the problems of race and labor relations and trust control while making the Panama Canal possible and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But his most historic achievement remains his creation of a national conservation policy, and his monument millions of acres of protected parks and forest. Theodore Rex ends with TR leaving office, still only fifty years old, his future reputation secure as one of our greatest presidents.In this lively biography, Edmund Morris returns to the gifted, energetic, and thoroughly controversial man whom the novelist Henry James called "King Theodore." In his two terms as president of the United States, Roosevelt forged an American empire, and he behaved as if it was his destiny. In this sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Morris charts Roosevelt's accomplishments: the acquisition of the Panama Canal and the Philippines, the creation of national parks and monuments, and more. "Collaring Capital and Labor in either hand," Morris writes, Roosevelt made few friends, but he usually got what he wanted--and earned an enduring place in history.
Morris combines a fine command of the era's big issues with an appreciation for the daily minutiae involved in governing a nation. Less controversially inventive, but no less readable, than the Ronald Reagan biography Dutch, Theodore Rex gives readers new reason both to admire and fault an American phenomenon. --Gregory McNamee
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