![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[books 2011] Theordore Roosevelt Biography
Feb. 6th, 2011 08:50 pm7. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life by Kathleen Dalton
I bought this in Yellowstone - the memory of Teddy Roosevelt looms large in Wyoming in general and in the park in particular, and I really didn't know much about him.
This is a really interesting book, but really hard going at 500-odd pages of tiny print. I learned a lot about a man who was a bundle of contradictions in his own time and would be even more so today, and about the evolution of progressive politics in the early 20th century. The author is a TR fan, but it's not a hagiography by any means.
My nit-pick is that what I haven't learned a lot about is TR and the western states and territories. There will be a throw-away sentence like "and the he spent six weeks in the West" and occasionally a list of the game he shot. This is in contrast to whole paragraphs concerning the furnishing and exact location of his house in NYC. I'm not quite willing to chalk this up to paucity of sources.
So, recommended with reservations.
The third volume of a three-volume biography has just come out; I don't think I care enough about *anybody* to read three whole volumes[1] but I might find it and just read the Western parts if that's any better.
[1] Or that might just be the medievalist in me not being able to get my head round there being the existence of enough source documents to fill three volumes.
I bought this in Yellowstone - the memory of Teddy Roosevelt looms large in Wyoming in general and in the park in particular, and I really didn't know much about him.
This is a really interesting book, but really hard going at 500-odd pages of tiny print. I learned a lot about a man who was a bundle of contradictions in his own time and would be even more so today, and about the evolution of progressive politics in the early 20th century. The author is a TR fan, but it's not a hagiography by any means.
My nit-pick is that what I haven't learned a lot about is TR and the western states and territories. There will be a throw-away sentence like "and the he spent six weeks in the West" and occasionally a list of the game he shot. This is in contrast to whole paragraphs concerning the furnishing and exact location of his house in NYC. I'm not quite willing to chalk this up to paucity of sources.
So, recommended with reservations.
The third volume of a three-volume biography has just come out; I don't think I care enough about *anybody* to read three whole volumes[1] but I might find it and just read the Western parts if that's any better.
[1] Or that might just be the medievalist in me not being able to get my head round there being the existence of enough source documents to fill three volumes.
