Books like The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

'Colonel Roosevelt,' which takes its title from Roosevelt's favourite way of being addressed during his emeritus years, follows the African Journey with Mr. Morris's characteristic care. He uses primary sources, sometimes even rough drafts of letters and documents, and goes well beyond Roosevelt's own writing - which is exhausting even to contemplate, since he once claimed that he wrote between 100,000 and 150,000 letters a year. (..)The close attention in detail in 'Colonel Roosevelt' also extends to its choices of photographs.Mr. Morris seems to have been determined to use startling lifelike picture rather than blandly studied ones. (..)Post-Safari in 1910 America's showiest ex-president went to Europe and found himself greatly in demand. (..) While in Europe, Roosevelt fulfilled Taft's request that he join hordes of royalty at the funeral of Edward VII (..)Back stateside Roosevelt made a concerted effort to avoid speaking ill of Taft. And Mr. Morris described exactly how that effort fell apart as Roosevelt developed aspirations for 1912. 'Although he was not running, he was running,' Mr. Morris writes. 'Even as he maintained his vow of silence, he was shouting from the hustings.' As 'Colonel Roosevelt' describes how Roosevelt's 'Bull Moose' campaign, via the breakaway Progressive Party, managed to hobble the Republican Taft and elect a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, this book is at its most intensively political. Campaign events and calculations dominate this part of the story. And Mr. Morris's research is thorough enough to amplify an already well-documented part of the Roosevelt story. (..)The end of Roosevelt's life was a bitter time. The war had begun. The four Roosevelt sons and their father had all trained for preparedness, two boys would be wounded; a third would be killed in France.'What made this loss so devastating to him was the truth it conveyed,' Mr. Morris writes about Roosevelt's reaction: 'that death in battle was no more glamorous than death in an abattoir.'Learn more:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/boo...