The Roosevelt Chronicles

by Nathan, Miller and Nathan Miller

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385127545
• ISBN13: 9780385127547
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 377 Pages
• Weight: 6.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A gripping account of TR and the Progressive Era

Having read a biography of Theodore Roosevelt 30 years ago it's amazing the light years biographies have made. Biographies until recent times had been little more than recitations of their life and times, but now are delving much more deeply into original source documents and completing a much fuller and more comprehensive picture of their subject. Biographers are also taking a much more multi-disciplinary approach pulling in sociology, psychology, history, political science and economics that make biographies a much richer read. You feel like you really understand them in the context of their times. Theodore Roosevelt by Nathan Miller is just such a read. Theodore Roosevelt is already a lively and entertaining figure and his life was like a movie anyways. Sickly child to Wildman of the West, Society Dandy to wily politician, scorned outsider to President. Miller captures it all in style that fairly crackles with life. His writing on the period of TR's entry to politics through to the Spanish-American War was so gripping I could hardly put it down. Miller pulls in a great number of archival and original sources to paint a much more complete comprehensive and engaging portrait of TR. I haven't read Edmund Morris's Theodore Rex yet, but hear it's equally good. The anecdotes Miller throws in showcases what a manic bundle of energy TR was, yet he lets TR live in his era. Too often revisionist historians try and impose today's standards on past figures. Miller eschews that and TR is really seen for the man he is. Theodore Roosevelt is a compelling read for those interested in learning more on him and the Progressive Era. I'd read this book as a companion piece to two courses I was taking last semester, Gilded Age and Progressive Era (HIST 4461) and US Diplomatic History 1890 to Present (HIST 3321) and it tied to both exceedingly well, providing great insight into the context of the times. As far as insight into TR himself I dare say Miller is far more objective than TR was in his autobiography and truly captures TR in most every respect.