History--Book reviews

Six works compete for attention in this edition of the “Book Reviews” section, including two works by Theodore Roosevelt: a collection of nine of his speeches and essays published by the Theodore Roosevelt Association and a reissue of his The Naval War of 1812. The review of The Man in the Arena: Speeches and Essays notes that John A. Gable wrote the introduction and explanatory notes, and it provides context for some of the selections. A portion of Gable’s introduction follows the review. Seth Cropsey praises Roosevelt’s naval history and stresses its fairness and “balanced objectivity” and notes its relevance to contemporary debates about how to deploy the American navy.

Lewis L. Gould reviews James Wright’s study of the Progressive era in New Hampshire and notes that Roosevelt’s Bull Moose campaign set back the cause of reform in the state. Archibald B. Roosevelt, Junior, joins his cousin Kermit Roosevelt, Junior, both grandsons of Theodore Roosevelt, in publishing a memoir of his service with the Central Intelligence Agency, For Lust of Knowing: Memoirs of an Intelligence Officer.

The section notes the publication of works on Roosevelt’s time as Police Commissioner of New York City and on his relationship with the naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, and notes that each will be reviewed in an upcoming issue of the Journal.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

This edition of the “Book Reviews” section examines four works. “How Does TR Rate?” focuses on the poll numbers assigned to Theodore Roosevelt in The Rating Game in American Politics and finds that Roosevelt places in the great or near great categories. The review gives an overview of the essays in the collection, and highlights those on Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. William Davison Johnston reviews Edward L. Beach’s The United States Navy: 200 Years and notes that it is not a narrative history, and he stresses that it was awarded the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize for 1987.

In “The Independent Progressives,” John A. Gable reviews Eugene M. Tobin’s Organize or Perish: America’s Independent Progressives, 1913-1933 which studies former members of the Bull Moose Party like Amos Pinchot and George L. Record. Gable notes that these figures operated outside of elected offices and built organizations, but that they lacked the strength and numbers to build a political party. Gable notes how Tobin’s work adds to our understanding of the larger Progressive era. The section concludes with a notice that the Naval War College has published a comprehensive bibliography of the writings of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan.

A photograph of Johnston and Beach shaking hands at a Theodore Roosevelt Association event in October 1983 appears in the section.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Three book reviews, a book notice, and a look at Paul Russell Cutright’s career comprise the “Book Reviews” section. In “TR: The Making of a Conservationist,” Lewis L. Gould reviews Cutright’s Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a Conservationist and notes that the work covers the formative years of Roosevelt’s life better than his first work on Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: The Naturalist. Gould says that Cutright challenges some of the assumptions made by David McCullough about Roosevelt’s childhood asthma. John A. Gable discusses Cutright’s two works on Roosevelt, lists his publications in the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, and reviews his teaching career and publications in “Paul Russell Cutright: Historian of Natural History.” 

In “Presidential Children,” Gable gives a scathing review of Sandra L. Quinn and Sanford Kanter’s America’s Royalty: All the Presidents’ Children. Gable notes that the book is riddled with factual errors and that it has a “truly pathetic” bibliography. Gable also reviews Richard H. Collin’s Theodore Roosevelt, Culture, Diplomacy, and Expansion and notes that Roosevelt’s foreign policy was impacted by American culture and by the need to counter the imperialism of the leading European states. The section concludes with a notice about the publication of Between Ocean and Empire: An Illustrated History of Long Island which includes an essay on Roosevelt and Sagamore Hill written by Gable. 

In “Collin on TR, Culture, and Foreign Policy,” Elizabeth E. Roosevelt reviews Richard H. Collin’s Theodore Roosevelt, Culture, Diplomacy, and Expansion: A New View of American Imperialism. Roosevelt notes that Collin places President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy in a larger cultural and global affairs context, stressing cultural changes in the United States and the threat posed by the imperialism of European powers. 

This book was also reviewed by John A. Gable, the editor of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, in the Winter, 1986 issue. An editorial note says that Collin’s work is so important “that this second review is warranted.”

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Three brief reviews make up this edition of the “Book Reviews” section. In “Bat and TR,” Peter R. Fisher looks at Jack DeMattos’s Masterson and Roosevelt which examines the friendship between Bat Masterson, western gunfighter and marshal, and Theodore Roosevelt. John A. Gable notes the publication of a new paperback edition of Roosevelt’s Autobiography in “TR’s Autobiography.” Gable quotes from the introduction written by Elting E. Morison. Gable also reviews Kenneth D. Crews’s Edward S. Corwin and the American Constitution: A Bibliographical Analysis. Gable notes that Corwin was an authority on the Constitution and the presidency and that he was one of the first political scientists to recognize Roosevelt’s changes to the presidency.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1985

Creator(s)

Fisher, Peter R. (Peter Rowe), 1933-1985; Gable, John A.

The “Book Reviews” section features three essays. In “‘The Negatives Are the Score the Prints Are the Performance,” Chris Foster examines Side Trips: The Photography of Sumner W. Matteson, 1898-1908. Foster looks at the development of photography equipment, especially Kodak cameras, notes the various locations in the American West, Mexico, and Cuba that Matteson documented, and pays particular attention to Matteson’s photographs of Native Americans and their culture. A photograph of a buffalo, a copy of which Matteson sent to President Theodore Roosevelt, accompanies the review and is the only illustration in the section.

In “A Tribute to George E. Mowry,” John Robert Greene reviews Reform and the Reformer in the Progressive Era.” Greene examines each of the essays in this tribute to George E. Mowry, a historian of the Progressive age, and finds a number of them disappointing, but he reserves special praise for an essay that provides an overview of Mowry’s career and for the transcript of an interview with Mowry from 1980.

John A. Gable reviews Peggy and Harold Samuels’s Frederic Remington: A Biography in “Remington’s West.” Gable notes the importance of Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister to forming Americans’ view of the frontier West, and he catalogs many of Remington’s illustrations, paintings, and sculptures, some of which belonged to Roosevelt. Gable pushes back against some of the criticism that the Samuels compile against Remington, and he notes Roosevelt’s admiration for the artist.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Kenneth D. Crews reviews John Milton Cooper’s dual biography The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Crews highlights Wilson’s leadership of Princeton University, disagrees with Cooper’s emphasis on the year 1907 as pivotal for both presidents, and looks at their differing philosophies in the 1912 campaign. Crews also believes that Cooper’s characterization of Roosevelt as a warrior and Wilson as a priest is problematic, but he concludes that the book “is essential and excellent reading.”

The review features an excerpt from the book highlighted in bold, italicized text.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1984

The “Book Reviews” section features three separate review essays. In “Wagenknecht’s Many Worlds,” John A. Gable compares Edward Wagenknecht’s American Profile, 1900-1909, a study of American life during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, to Wagenknecht’s The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt. Gable highly recommends both works. In “Presidents and the Press,” Bruce L. Tulgan reviews George Juergens’ News From the White House which examines the relationship that Roosevelt, William H. Taft, and Woodrow Wilson cultivated, or neglected in Taft’s case, with the press. In “Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt, and American Foreign Policy,” Gable examines William C. Widenor’s Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy. Gable looks at Lodge’s relationship with Roosevelt, the importance of history to their worldviews, and Lodge’s opposition to the League of Nations.

An illustration of Roosevelt in a dynamic speaking pose accompanies the Tulgan review.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1983

In this edition of the “Book Reviews” section, Paul Russell Cutright and Philip J. Roosevelt provide separate but equally laudatory reviews of American Bears, a collection of writings about bears and bear hunting by Theodore Roosevelt edited by Paul Schullery. Kenneth D. Crews finds that Roosevelt plays a minor, but important, role in Carlton Jackson’s The Dreadful Month about the awful death toll in American coal mines in December 1907. John A. Gable examines Paul D. Casdorph’s Republicans, Negroes, and Progressives in the South, 1912-1916 and compares some its findings to his own work on the Progressive Party.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1983

Creator(s)

Cutright, Paul Russell, 1897-1988; Roosevelt, Philip J.; Crews, Kenneth D.; Gable, John A.

Peter R. Fisher gives a brief review of Joseph Alsop’s FDR, 1882-1945: A Centenary Remembrance and praises it for its photographs and many anecdotes while acknowledging that its discussion of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s career is “superficial.”

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1982

Creator(s)

Fisher, Peter R. (Peter Rowe), 1933-1985

William J. Kolodnicki praises Paul Russell Cutright and Michael J. Brodhead for their biography of Elliott Coues, an important figure in the history of American ornithology whose Key to North American Birds helped develop the birding skills of Theodore Roosevelt. John A. Gable reviews Howard W. Allen’s Poindexter of Washington: A Study in Progressive Politics about Miles Poindexter and his transformation from progressive to conservative in the first quarter of the twentieth century. David G. McCullough asserts that a photograph of a young Roosevelt that is usually captioned as Roosevelt preparing to box actually shows him dressed to row.

A full page photograph of Roosevelt dressed to row with McCullough’s explanatory caption makes up the third page of the “Book Notes” column.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1982

Stephen Fox reviews T. J. Jackson Lear’s No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920. Fox lists some of the attributes of the movement as well as some of its well known adherents, and he contends that the conservation movement also belongs to the antimodernist tradition. J. David Valaik finds that Dale L. Walker’s Death Was the Black Horse: The Story of Rough Rider Buckey O’Neill adds little to our knowledge of one of Theodore Roosevelt’s most famous troopers. John A. Gable argues that Richard L. McCormick’s From Realignment to Reform: Political Change in New York State, 1893-1910 provides valuable context for understanding Roosevelt’s political career in the Empire State.

An advertisement for the Roosevelt Savings Bank of Garden City, New York, listing its various branch offices is found at the end of the reviews.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1982

John A. Gable reviews David McCullough’s biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Mornings on Horseback. He highlights subjects that he thinks McCullough has broken new ground on, and he discusses the book’s place in the historiography of Roosevelt, seeing it as part of a larger “Roosevelt revival.” Gable also compares McCullough’s biography with those of Carleton Putnam and Edmund Morris.

A photograph of Roosevelt in 1876 accompanies the review.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1981

Four brief book reviews comprise the “Book Notes” column. John A. Gable reviews Michael Teague’s oral history of Alice Roosevelt Longworth and praises it for its use of 170 photographs, and he also examines Stephen Fox’s John Muir and His Legacy which not only looks at Muir’s life and work, but at many lesser known conservationists who comprise Muir’s legacy. Elizabeth E. Roosevelt reviews Thomas G. Dyer’s Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race and finds its chapters on Native Americans and African Americans valuable while Janice Marino finds William L. DeAndrea’s novel The Lunatic Fringe worthless.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1981

Creator(s)

Gable, John A.; Roosevelt, Elizabeth E.; Marino, Janice, 1931-2017

John A. Gable acknowledges the various authors who have essays appearing in this issue of the Journal, and he quotes from several reviews of David McCullough’s biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Mornings on Horseback. Gable also notes the opening of a new visitor center at the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota, and he highlights the ceremonies surrounding eightieth anniversary of Roosevelt’s inauguration at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1981

Creator(s)

Gable, John A.

In the “Book Notes” column, Frederick W. Marks reviews William M. Gibson’s Theodore Roosevelt Among the Humorists and John A. Gable reviews Aloysius A. Norton’s Theodore Roosevelt. Marks criticizes Gibson for accepting the judgments of Theodore Roosevelt put forward by humorists such as Mark Twain, and he argues that Gibson, as a literature professor, is not qualified to make evaluations of Roosevelt’s diplomacy. Gable praises Norton’s study of Roosevelt as a writer, and his main criticism is that the book is too short to provide a thorough analysis of all of Roosevelt’s works. Marks and Gable contend that Roosevelt’s image continues to suffer from persistent stereotypes.

A picture of Roosevelt reading accompanies the article.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1981

John A. Gable provides brief reviews of three books on Theodore Roosevelt and quotes other reviews about Sylvia Jukes Morris’s biography of Edith Kermit Roosevelt. He reviews A. A. Norton’s Theodore Roosevelt, which evaluates Roosevelt as a writer; William M. Gibson’s Theodore Roosevelt Among the Humorists, which looks at Roosevelt’s relationship with William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and Finley Peter Dunne; and Thomas G. Dyer’s Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1981

Creator(s)

Gable, John A.

John A. Gable opens this edition of the “News and Notes” column by citing reviews of recent works on Theodore Roosevelt by Sylvia Jukes Morris and Frederick W. Marks, and he notes the publication of two other recent works on Roosevelt. He writes of the Theodore Roosevelt Association’s (TRA) defense of Roosevelt’s tenure as Police Commissioner of New York City, notes changes in the leadership of the Sagamore Hill and Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Sites, and highlights the TRA’s support of upgrading Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park in Oyster Bay, New York.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1980

Creator(s)

Gable, John A.

John A. Gable begins the “Book Notes” column with a review of Sylvia Jukes Morris’s biography Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady. In doing so, he provides a shorter, but still complete examination of Roosevelt’s life, and highlights the research Morris did utilizing letters, Roosevelt’s diary, and interviews.

Three pictures of Edith Roosevelt are included in the review: one considered the favorite of her husband, Theodore Roosevelt; a drawing by John Singer Sargent; and a third of Edith Roosevelt with Lou Henry Hoover, the wife of Herbert Hoover.

In Gable’s following review of Frederick W. Mark’s Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt, Gable places the work in the context of other studies of Roosevelt and argues that it represents a further step in an ongoing reappraisal of Roosevelt. He quotes extensively from Marks and from Edmund Morris’s review of the work.

A picture of Roosevelt at his desk at Sagamore Hill accompanies the review.

A listing of the officers and the members of the executive, finance, and Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace committees of the Theodore Roosevelt Association is included among the reviews.

This edition of the “Book Notes” column features news and reviews of four Theodore Roosevelt related works: Edmund Morris’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Sylvia Jukes Morris’s Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady, John A. Gable’s The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party, and Gary G. Roth and Hermann Hagedorn’s Sagamore Hill: An Historical Guide.

The column begins with the announcement that Edmund Morris had won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize in biography for his study of the young Roosevelt. An excerpt from a review of Sylvia Morris’s biography of Edith Roosevelt is followed with excerpts from four reviews of Gable’s book on the Progressive party. A review of Sagamore Hill concludes the column.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1980