theodore Roosevelt Made Himself The Hero Of His Own Strenuous Life. He Transformed Himself From A Sickly And Fearful Patrician Boy Into A Fiercely Adventurous – And Always Active – Hunter, Sportsman, Writer, Politician, And Finally President. But One Self-making Was Never Enough For Tr. He Slowly Fashioned Himself Into A Man Of The People, A Defender Of The Poor And Downtrodden, And A Prophet Of Political Ideas Advanced For His Day. This Is The Story Of His Personal And Political Development, Of One Man’s Struggle To Conquer His Own Fears And To Build A Greater Nation Out Of A Divided Collection Of States. He Urged America To Engage Life To The Utmost, As He Did. Kathleen Dalton’s Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life Incorporates The Latest Scholarship Into A Vigorous Narrative. It Stands As The Only Full-length Biography To Use Manuscripts Recently Discovered In Roosevelt Attics. Dalton Sheds New Light On Young Theodore’s Life During The Civil War And His Fascination With The New Natural History, His Shame Over His Father’s Failure To Enlist In The Union Army, His Struggle To Achieve Manhood, And His Desperate Pursuit Of And Sometimes Less Than Idyllic Marriage To Alice Hathaway Lee, The Daughter Of A Banking Magnate, When She Was Seventeen. Her Death Four Years Later Left Roosevelt A Grieving Widower And Father At Twenty-six, And He Went West To Make Himself A Cowboy And Western Writer Before He Could Recommit Himself To A New Life And A New Love In The East. Out Of This Biography Emerges A New Picture Of The Progressive Era, Of State-building And Reform Won In Partnership Between Tr And Activists Such As Jane Addams And Frances Kellor. In His Political Maturity Roosevelt Aspired To Be The Builder Of The Modern American Welfare State In Order To Give Industrial Workers A Better Life And At The Same Time To Stand More Forcefully Against The Arrogance And Greed Of Large Corporations. Dalton Shows How Tr Called For A Revival Of American Arts And Letters, And
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dalton, A History Instructor At Phillips Academy, Andover, Seems Determined To Cut Tr Down To Size And Drain His Life Of Color In This Dry, Questionably Reasoned Biography. She Complains That Other Books About Roosevelt Are Often Rich With Dramatic Adventure And Colorful Scenes, Just As The Bull Moose Would Have Wanted. With This In Mind, She Sets Herself Apart From Established Tr Biographers, Who She Believes Have Been Duped Into Perpetuating The Autobiographical Canards Of Their Self-mythologizing Subject. Thus Dalton Devotes Vast Chunks Of Prose To Debunking Many Of The Most Popular Theodore Roosevelt Images Common From Books By Such Writers As Edmund Morris And David Mccullough. Unfortunately, The Shaky Foundation Dalton Offers Instead Seems Incapable Of Carrying So Full A Load As The Life Of Theodore Roosevelt. In The Final Analysis, Dalton Offers An Unsatisfying, One-dimensional Definition Of Tr’s Complex Psychology. She Sees Him As Little More Than An Overgrown And Preposterous Boy: A Boy Who Always Gets Into Trouble, A Boy Who Never Asks For Or Follows Advice, A Boy Who Needs Constant Supervision. By The End Of The Book, It Seems A Wonder That Dalton’s Self-centered And Fractious Tr Ever Achieved The White House, Wrote Books That Became Classics, Won The Nobel Peace Prize, Set Aside Millions Of Acres For Conservation, Or Loomed Large On Any Stage Other Than That Of His Own Imagination. 32 Pages Of Photos Not Seen By Pw. (oct. 15) Forecast: Readers Who Made Edmund Morris’s Two-volume Bio A Bestseller May Be Sated With Tr; They May Further Question Dalton’s Positioning Herself As The Only One To Find The Real Tr. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
