Theodore Roosevelt

"Henry F. Pringle's Pulitzer Prize biography of Theordore Roosevelt is an important and durable contribution to Rooseveltian literature. Not only does it chronicle the incidents that shaped Roosevelt's career but it offers insight into the character and mind of this colorful American president as well. A childhood illness, asthma, may have played a role in shaping his political personality. Teased and taunted for his physical weakness, Roosevelt compensated for this and other humiliations by taking up boxing, leading the Rough Riders, brandishing the Big Stick, and hunting lions. T.R. remarked that the presidency was a "bully pulpit," and he preached on such temporal topics as art, literature, nature, football, marriage, child-rearing, and birth control. He relished the controversies that his words incited, and when public opinion was against him, he retreated by speaking out on a different subject. As the author states in his foreword: "The pages which follow will have failed completely unless they prove that Theodore Roosevelt was never dull. He grew old in body only; at least a decade too soon. T.R. combined adult greatness with the endearing, if sometimes irritating, quality of being a magnificent child. The combination was a major reason why men followed and loved him, throughout a growing land."--Publisher