Reviews for In the arena : Theodore Roosevelt in war, peace, and revolution
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A study of Theodore Roosevelt that doesn’t shy from the less palatable sides of his views and character. Trustbusting, pugnacious, and convention defying, Roosevelt is held in generally high regard by both scholars and the public, usually ranking fourth in what biographer/historian Brown calls “the parlor game of presidential rankings.” Like those who edge him out—Washington, Lincoln, and FDR—Roosevelt’s presidency was forged in crises, most economic rather than martial; though he was famed for his service in the Spanish American War, he was prouder of being a peacemaker in bringing the Russo-Japanese War to an end. In that regard, reading between Brown’s lines, it’s easy to see that American racism was enough of an affront to Japanese pride that the later Pacific War would seem almost inevitable; there Roosevelt again tried to be a peacemaker of a kind, attempting to convince the San Francisco school board that segregating Asian students “risked plunging the country into a dangerous international incident.” One of the strong points of Brown’s narrative is that it takes on Roosevelt’s own racism headlong: As the author notes, Roosevelt’s version of Manifest Destiny required the extermination of “our main opponents,” namely Native Americans, and his presidency was badly tarnished by racial episodes involving Black Americans, with one of his sons posthumously resurrecting a remark by the old man that “the negro…has been kept down as much by lack of intellectual development as by anything else.” There are better books on Roosevelt—David McCullough’sMornings on Horseback remains essential—and Brown doesn’t break much ground overall. Of value, though, is his likening of Roosevelt to Donald Trump, “who also challenged the country’s democratic norms” and merrily exhibits the egocentricity (albeit much amplified) and self-satisfaction of his predecessor. Not the first book to turn to on TR, but with points of interest for completists. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
