I finally finished reading Edmund Morris' three-volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt.


The first volume, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, published in 1979, covers the events from TR's birth up to his ascension to the presidency on September 14, 1901, following the assassination of president William McKinley.

The second volume, Theodore Rex, published in 2001, covers the events of his presidency.

This third volume, Colonel Roosevelt, covers his post-presidency. For most presidents, their years after being president is worthy of, at most, only one concluding chapter in a biography. But Theodore Roosevelt is one of the few presidents who was so active and busy after leaving the White House that an entire volume is required to describe his activities, even though time period covers less than 10 years.

I have spent the last two months reading this trilogy, and now that I am done, I feel both a great sense of accomplishment, but also a sense of sadness that it is over. If I ever have the time, I would like to read this trilogy again sometime in the future.

You know how it is after reading a really, really great book, or a series, that captures your imagination and keeps you invested all the way. After two months of having Theodore Roosevelt on the brain, I don't know how I am going to be able to go back to normal. I can no longer remember what life was like before I spent 24 hours a day thinking about Theodore Roosevelt.

Congratulations!

Care to share any insights you gleaned from the book? Or any quotable quotes?

I loved that trilogy. I devoured each one as soon as they were published.

As much as I enjoyed them, though, I'd have to say that my greatest reading accomplishment was reading all four volumes of Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Masterful-absolutely masterful.

Yep.

I'll have to put those on my list.

Well, you're talking about 2,500 pages, so it covers a lot of material. Theodore Roosevelt is one of those public figures about whom there is an enormous amount of documentation. The books and magazine articles that he wrote during his life fill 24 volumes, add in his private diary, which he started at age 10 and added an entry to almost every day until his death 50 years later, to his private correspondence, to his public addresses, not counting all the stuff he said and did while president, easily fill a small library. Then you have Roosevelt's numerous famous friends and admirers, such as Henry Adams, Henry Cabot Lodge, Willam Howard Taft, Booker T Washington, the list just goes on and on, and you see just how difficult a task it must be to try to write a biography of the man. I am not at all surprised that it took Edmund Morris over 30 years to write his account, frankly, I'm surprised it didn't take longer.


What I did find interesting is that a lot TR's political opponents considered him to mentally ill, and, after reading the accounts of some of the stuff he did, like giving a two-hour speech in front of a crowd of thousands while bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his chest that he suffered at the hands of an attempted assassin, to attempting to volunteer to go on the front lines in World War I at the age of 58, when he was already ill and would die of natural causes a little more than a year later, to his public speeches such as his address accepting the Progressive party nomination in 1912 where he proclaimed that 'we stand at armageddon and we battle for the Lord' (and I thought that Obama's rhetoric in 2008 was messianic! ) and his extraordinarily vicious public attacks on Woodrow Wilson, I can totally understand why so many of enemies thought he was insane. I'm pretty sure he wasn't actually mentally ill, but some of his behavior seemed rather eccentric and extreme, so I can totally understand why many assumed the worst and just thought the guy was nuts.

He did a lot.

Reading up on TR made me want to read up on Alice Roosevelt Longworth. I can't help but wonder how different her life (and even TR's) would be if Alice Lee Roosevelt had lived.

According to Edith Carrow Roosevelt, he would have committed suicide from boredom. Although, admittedly her opinion was quite far from being unbiased.

Another thing I find interesting is that, the people who supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive or 'Bull Moose' party in 1912, and who called themselves 'progressives' in the naughts and the teens, who were still around in 1932 and 1933 and beyond, did not support Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal reforms. Even though FDR went out of his way to try to sell them as being an extension and continuation of TR's policies and agenda, even re-phrasing TR's name of a 'Square Deal' and turning it into 'New Deal' and he insisted that the New Deal was a continuation of TR's policies, very few of the old school Progressives from TR's era supported FDR. I would have thought that the old school 'Progressives' would have loved the New Deal, but they didn't, they hated it, passionately. The old school Progressives from 1912 thought that the New Deal was betrayal of TR's 'New Nationalism' and destroyed his 'Square Deal.' Those who admired TR and his policies generally DESPISED FDR and supported Hoover in 1932. I guess that in the end, most of the old school Progressives ended up becoming conservatives. And, of course, there are many, both in his own time and ours, who argue that TR was a 'conservative reformer' and not a liberal, progressive or radical at all. I don't see any radical dichotomy or opposition between the New Deal and the Square Deal, but I guess that is what I have to study next. to find out why the old school Progressives from TR's era hated FDR and the New Deal. There has to be a reason, and it can't just be 'because FDR is the wrong Roosevelt', although there is probably some of that.

I could go on and on and on and on...I've spent the last two months boring everyone I know by constantly interjecting into conversations, at random moments, usually apropos of nothing 'did you know that Theodore Roosevelt.....' Well, anyone who is a lover of good books no doubt knows what I'm talking about, the effect that a really good, exciting book can have on you while you read it.

Reading several sources on TR and his immediate family (including the Morris trilogy) has given me the distinct impression that Edith Carow Roosevelt was a very petty woman. It's as is she determined herself as being "entitled" to having TR for her husband and resented Alice Lee for "stealing her man." The fact that TR had little to no contact with Edith from the time he met Alice until some years after her death lends credence, IMHO.

"Another thing I find interesting is that, the people who supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive or 'Bull Moose' party in 1912, and who called themselves 'progressives' in the naughts and the teens, who were still around in 1932 and 1933 and beyond, did not support Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal reforms. Even though FDR went out of his way to try to sell them as being an extension and continuation of TR's policies and agenda, even re-phrasing TR's name of a 'Square Deal' and turning it into 'New Deal' and he insisted that the New Deal was a continuation of TR's policies, very few of the old school Progressives from TR's era supported FDR. "

I like this.

Looks like they are available on Overdrive!!!