I judged Theodore Roosevelt harshly after reading The Imperial Cruise, (describing him as imperialistic, power hungry, and manipulative, among other adjectives) a view that was reaffirmed by The Path Between the Seas (when I noted "add Panama to the list of places Teddy Roosevelt took by storm" in my year-end review).
Still, it seemed only fair to withhold full judgment until I'd read Edmund Morris's biography, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. And I tried, I really tried. This is a man who, for all his riches, was chronically ill as a child, experienced the untimely death of his father while still in college, and then suffered the unspeakable double heartbreak of his mother and wife dying on the same day - and on Valentine's Day, at that.
Try as I might, I couldn't get past the pomposity and the bloodlust. In fact, I couldn't even get past 1886, 12 years before Teddy stormed San Juan Hill and a decade-and-a-half before he assumed the presidency.
Often when I can't finish a book, I blame the author for having written a book that is dry-as-dust or having simply written terribly. With The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, neither is true. Morris writes well and he writes engagingly. I was just tired of Teddy.
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