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Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life

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This is the only biography of Theodore Roosevelt that I have read that was written by a woman and I have read over ten. How a man's man like TR avoided this all of these years is a mystery. While the book itself is certainly well written much more important is that it has some very interesting insights into the character of an intriguing man. No one that is honest, and Ms. Dalton certainly appears such, could make Theodore Roosevelt's life story boring, egocentric, certainly, prissy, occasionally, but boring, never. The reviewer above that states otherwise is simply wrong. This is an interesting, well written book with many valid observations.

Ms. Dalton succeeds in conveying a view of TR that other historians have missed, or glossed over, or never saw. I can't tell if this is because of better scholarship, use of new or previously undiscovered sources, or simply because as a woman she was more sensitive to these issues than the other biographers that I have read. In any event it makes no difference since her insights do much to explain TR's life. In the past biographers focused on what happened, and so much happened to TR in such a short time that they often missed explaining the why part of TR's story. Ms. Dalton does this very well.

Frankly I resisted buying this book because I had already read so many others about TR that I wondered how Ms. Dalton could have enough new to say to justify the time of reading another long biography of TR. She justified my investment in time very well. So, much so that when a new books comes out by Kathleen Dalton I will buy that too.

With this book, Kathleen Dalton has produced the best one-volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt we are likely to see for some time. Hers is a work about Roosevelt the person, not the image or caricature that is so often reduced to in the public mind. As a result, she has provided a valuable work examining the man behind the famous myth - a myth that Roosevelt himself did so much to construct.

The process begins in sorting the distortions surrounding his childhood. The product of study going back to her dissertation written over a quarter century ago on Roosevelt's pre-presidential years, this is one of the strongest sections of the book. Unlike Edmund Morris in his ongoing opus, Dalton fits the young TR squarely into the context of his times, showing how he reflected many of the prevailing Victorian attitudes about youth and manhood. Moreover. her Roosevelt is not the paragon of manliness that Morris' is. She goes further in detailing the poor health that plagued Roosevelt throughout his life (such as his attacks of asthma, which Dalton notes that, contrary to TR's own account, he never overcame completely) and from which he constantly sought to escape - hence the theme of her book, the "strenuous life" of her subtitle.

Dalton also details the early years of Roosevelt's political career with considerable insight. She describes how Roosevelt was very much his father's son, with the elder Roosevelt encouraging his namesake to take up the cause of social reform from an early age. This formed a key component of his political career from its start with his election as a New York state legislator. Yet Dalton shows that Roosevelt was much more than the typical patrician reformer of his time. The critical period in the development was his tenure as a New York City police commissioner. Not only did he gain greater exposure to how the "other half" of New York society lived, but Dalton credits his experience with the infighting of the job in preparing him for the harsher aspects of political life later on.

Dalton's account becomes more disjointed once TR becomes president. Here it is as if she is swept away by the breathless pace of the Roosevelt White House, as she continually shifts between hurried explanations of the political problems Roosevelt faced and descriptions of his family life. Events and people often are referenced in passing without adequate explanation, which can leave the reader guessing at the relevancy and significance of her point. Yet while the frenetic nature of the account can be annoying, it does help in her effort to convey the physical toll the job took on TR, one which became increasingly apparent as his term came to an end.

Once Roosevelt moves into his post-presidential years, Dalton regains her focus. Here she gives extensive coverage to TR's continuing fight for domestic reform. Though Roosevelt spent more than a year abroad in order to give his successor, William Howard Taft, the freedom to operate away from his considerable shadow, he found himself unable to avoid the political arena after his return. Dalton chronicles Roosevelt's adoption of an increasingly radical agenda during this period, one that included the adoption of income and inheritance taxes, workers' rights, and direct democracy - ideas that were anathema to the conservative leadership of the Republican Party.

Thwarted in his attempt to wrest the presidential nomination away from Taft, Roosevelt broke away from the Republican Party and ran for the White House in 1912 as the Progressive Party candidate. Though ultimately defeated in the race by Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt continued to fight for political reform and racial justice. Dalton argues that this struggle in the final years of Roosevelt's life has been overshadowed in most historians' accounts by his campaign for American involvement in the First World War, one which saw a more chauvinistic figure than the champion of progressivism which TR had become. In the end, though, TR's efforts to regain the presidency and press forward with his policies would end with his unexpected death in 1919 after a lifetime of battles and illnesses, the result of the "strenuous life" that has made him the icon he is today.

I'm not an historian--my doctorate is in literature--so take the following for what it's worth.

A Strenuous Life is a very impressive work, delightful in the way it spins its tale, exciting in its revelations of TR as a human being surrounded by other human beings at home as well as at work, and important in the parallels it leads us to draw between the real Roosevelt and the image current politicians conjure up of him to support their goals.

Kathleen Dalton weaves a fascinating tale of a complex individual--scientist, politician, leader, husband, father, idealist and pragmatist. In many ways the most intriguing "plot line" is Roosevelt's insistence on fairness and justice. As a young man he was introduced to the squalid conditions of New York City immigrants by photographer/journalist Jacob Riis. That revelation enflamed Roosevelt's intense sense of justice that led him to crusade for the underprivileged, laying the groundwork for his courageous stands against the abuses of big business.

Roosevelt's career almost seems the stuff of fiction with its improbable career story line--naturalist to politician to cowboy to soldier to president to explorer to third party challenger; and Dalton's writing has the lilt of the best fiction. But TR was real and Dalton's incredibly detailed and documented history provides an important reality check to the glibly portrayed Roosevelt of myth and legend. After reading A Strenuous Life one almost feels one knows Roosevelt well enough to say to some current politicians, "I knew Theodore Roosevelt...and you, sir, are no Theodore Roosevelt."

I am excited by Dalton's biography of Theodore Roosevelt. It is the freshest book to come out about TR since Edmund Morris' "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt." I have read many books about TR and there is much new and interesting information in her book.
For example she mentioned that J. Martin Miller, a journalist, lied about TR's drinking. I have a book by J. Martin Miller called "The Triumphant life of Theodore Roosevelt," copyright 1905, which has some rare pictures of TR. I have never before read any other mention of J. Martin Miller.
To anyone who has a mood disorder, it comes as no surprise that TR had one too, although the so-called "normal" people do not understand and think it is an insult to say their beloved TR had one. I started studying him a few years ago, figuring he was a self-actualized person. I wanted to find out how a person with bipolar disorder becomes a self-actualized person. By a great deal of reading and thinking, I realized how he did it. He learned how to deal with stress early in his life. He used studying, writing, reading, exercise and even food to stabilize his moods. What I didn't realize until I read this book was that his wife Edith, aware of his moods, eased much of the stress on him. His bipolar disorder was mild because he worked to learn how to handle stress. Often young people use much less healthy ways to deal with depression and manic depression. They would learn much about how to deal with their moods by studying TR.
I was pleased that the author expounded on his growing social conscience. I think it is very important to show that it is possible to learn and grow your entire life, up to the very end.
I think this book will be cited often by historians.

This is, simply put, a superb biography of Theodore Roosevelt. Dalton is a careful scholar who manages both to narrate with verve and style an incredible life and to do so with keen attention to historical realities. A professional historian, unlike many popular biographers of Roosevelt, Dalton integrates an enormous range of modern historical research and knowledge into her interpretation of Roosevelt. But she does so without ever straying from the compelling human tale she has to tell. A book that neither romanticizes nor underestimates the significance of this fascinating President, Dalton's study provides readers with a thorough and compassionate understanding of Roosevelt as politician and man.

Like David McCulough's John Adams this book combines with political history an engaging personal story, especially a story of a man's growth and the way his marriage helped him mature. In fact, the combination makes the book more interesting than pure political biography does. Dalton knows her history and yet weaves it into the story with a light touch. Her understanding of TR's family life goes deeper than anything Edmund Morris has writen and she also tells us what TR's peers thought about him. This is one of the most unusual biographies I have read because it qualifies as a page turner and a standard classic history. Don't miss it!

I thought it might have been a big hype over how good this book could be but when I was done reading it, I realized how great this book turned out to be.

The author, Kathleen Dalton, did a fantastic job in writing a honest biography on Theodore Roosevelt, a man which in many ways, a walking contradiction. TR's muliti-complex personality and behavior proves to be a impossible task for many historians to grasp but Kathleen Dalton make it look pretty easy.

The author ensure that there was nothing simple or sternotypical about Theodore Roosevelt. In many ways, her work is quite comparable with Edmund Morris' work on TR although one author emphsis more on one subject matter compared to the other one.

A must read book for anyone interested in the life and time of Theodore Roosevelt.

Not being a professional or amateur historian, I came on this book taking part in the on-line discussion this month at the New York Times American History books forum. I was hooked. It gave me a clear picture of this complex and fascinating man, Theodore Roosevelt, and his life and times. It complements and expands upon the other biographies out there on TR. If you are a historian (amateur or professional) you want this book in your library as an addendum to the others you might have on TR. If you are like me, not a history buff but want to bone up on Theodore Roosevelt and give yourself a boost on living your own strenuous life of vigor and purpose, buy this book!

As an avid reader of anything written by, or about Mr. Roosevelt, I found this book fills a gap left by previous efforts concerning a true insight into the subjects personal beliefs. Other works have mentinoed his phylsophy of the Strenuous life, however after reading this book, one KNOWS what that term ment to TR.

This is not a scholarly examination of TR's life, but it's a fun read nonetheless. If you are seeking a reliable and definitive book on TR's early years, the choice is Edmund Morris' 1979 biography. David McCullough's examination of Roosevelt is also essential (both books are available on Amazon). This book is breezy, entertaining and focuses on the home life and personal side of Roosevelt. It would be especially interesting to those who know little or nothing about Roosevelt, but possibly a mild disappointment to those who are better versed in TR's life. One notes that there isnothing new in the book: no new historical discovery, photograph, insight or theory, yet it's still definitely fun to read and hard to put down. Dalton writes well and uses a feminine insight into this marvelously interesting man.

She weaves together a cohesive narrative, though skimpy in TR's post-Presidential years which are absolutely vital to understanding his ultimate guilt and grandeur. The author also is fairly strong in describing TR's two marriages and his complicated and neurotic relationship with eccentric daughter Alice. The narrative is much weaker when it comes to illuminating Roosevelt's years as Governor of New York and the details of his Presidential administration.

Roosevelt remains one of the most fascinating, exuberant and fun men in American history, and this book is a welcome addition to the literature on TR.