Total Page : 370
Publisher : Simon Schuster
Publication Date : 1982 05 12
>> Strictly for TR buffs but accidentally falsifies TR
Sometimes a project just goes wrong DM seems to have drowned in the vast unpublished archive of Roosevelt diaries and letters he was so proud to be given access to He needed another two years and another draft I fear to digest it all He has made TR boring an amazing feat If there s a letter DM quotes it all mercilessly If not the event never happened and everything about TR s youth that fascinates us somehow eluded letters and diaries Or did DM think we needed a full picture of TR as a silly young Harvard snob to correct our heroic image of him He quotes nearly in full a letter TR writes from Harvard about how he can t get the rug in his room to lie down Yet here I got angry an entire TR buffalo hunt is merely mentioned in an aside It lacked a letter to quote That s DM s research problem TR s lovesick honeymoon gushes exist all of them but they shouldn t be hung around his neck for us to read Whose letters to his fiancee wouldn t make him look silly in print As for the extraordinary family must we read his grown drunken brother s babytalk letters to his Mom My own dear sweet Motherling if she feels cold at night she wraps a blanket around me so that I wake up roasting There s more about TR s old maidish sisters than about TR full accounts quoted about his mother s old age neat freak habits after TR was married The one success is the full portrait of TR s father a Christian gentleman if there ever was one and one of the kindest fathers to a difficult child who ever lived With one more draft and massive cuts DM could have produced a splendid short bio on TR s father As is mornings on horseback is almost a deceitful title inviting us to think we ll see Teddy out west Instead since he kept a diary his life as a NY State assemblyman up in Albany during an unimportant era is described in boring detail There s no balance Whatever was in that archive went in the book and it s a weird picture of TR as a result Strictly for buffs who can mentally adjust it
>> Consequences of Conscientious Character
The challenges the family endured while preserving a spirit of fair play to everyone is most revealing in terms of how adverse health plays an unfortunate part in stunting if not stifling such efforts I write this comment after reading the rapid descent in Theodore Roosevelt Sr s health leading to his demise at the epoch when his candidature for New York Custom House was considered by the US Senate
>> exceptional biography interesting American history well written
This book along with The Johnstown Flood is my favorite McCullough book This is the first one I read by this author and I was hooked If you like American history surrounding presidents and their families you ll enjoy this Teddy was quite a character to be admired His family history is fascinating
