Books
Three books and an essay are reviewed in the “Books” section. John A. Gable examines Kristie Miller’s biography Ruth Hanna McCormick and finds that it provides not only a look at her pioneering life in Republican politics, but that it also shows the impact of the Progressive Party into the 1920s. Gable notes that McCormick achieved many firsts for women in politics. Dennis Flanagan reviews War Plan Orange, the winner of the 1992 Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize, and reveals that American strategists had been debating about how to conduct a war against Japan decades before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In “Theodore Roosevelt, Carl Akeley, and the American Museum of Natural History,” Debby Applegate reviews a biography of Akeley and an essay that examines his work at the museum. Applegate highlights Akeley’s relationship with Roosevelt that began with his African safari, and she highlights how the works under review stress that the museum and its Roosevelt Memorial Hall are not “timeless” but represent the thinking of the men and the times in which they were built, and she cautions against casually condemning their work. A separate “Book Notes” section mentions twenty-five books on Roosevelt related topics or from Roosevelt historians, ranging from children’s books to biographies to a cookbook. The work of David G. McCullough, Douglas Brinkley, and Sylvia Jukes Morris are highlighted.
Photographs of Miller, Akeley, and the Barosaurus exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History illustrate the sections.
