King Teddy

I must admit to feeling some reservation as I began David S. Brown’s biography In the Arena: Theodore Roosevelt in War, Peace, and Revolution (Scribner, 496 pp.). Perhaps it’s the times we live in, but I was waiting for the book to reveal an ulterior motive or agenda. Lately works of history seem to emerge from either passion or polemics, meaning the reader ends up with a paean or political propaganda.

But the shoe never dropped. Brown’s new weighty tome on the president we call “Teddy” is curious, then, as a book that avoids extremes. It neither succumbs to adoration for its subject nor attempts to destroy him, offering instead a clear-eyed, comprehensive, fast-paced, and unromantic depiction of one of America’s greatest and most important presidents, without necessarily calling him great.

Teddy Roosevelt is certainly hard to categorize in modern terms, being both a boisterously masculine figure and a progressive Republican. We find in him the swagger, integrity, ruggedness, and pride that John Wayne would later embody on the screen. Roosevelt was an avatar representing all that is good and bad about our country—the self-­sufficient and the fully realized American man.

Brown is clearly fascinated by this great man without being swept up in Roosevelt’s hype. He attempts to view the president with an unflinching objectivity, only occasionally jumping out of the narrative to highlight a modern person’s perspective, for example, calling out eccentric aristocratic practices and social Darwinists for their implicit racism.

He certainly isn’t afraid to take shots at Teddy, calling much of the president’s eccentric mannerisms pretend. Brown also dresses down Roosevelt’s racist and imperialist statements, airs his dirty laundry, and undermines the narratives he claimed about himself and his nation. To his credit, Brown’s criticism isn’t partisan, as he levels the same accusations against rival politicians like Woodrow Wilson. He’s a fair critic, also highlighting their genuine accomplishments as accomplishments. Even the book’s brief digression on Trump merely highlights that Teddy shares a great deal in common with the sitting president.

Despite its hefty length, In the Arena’s brisk, digestible chapters make it a propulsive read, efficiently capturing the major events of Roosevelt’s life with enough detail. We learn how a sickly aristocratic child, with a love of taxidermy and classic literature, could grow into a successful politician, author, war hero, and cattle rancher.

Granted, the image Brown paints of Roosevelt isn’t flattering. He was clearly a complex man, intelligent but disdainful of intellectualism, prejudiced but scornful of outright bigots, ambitious to the point of restlessness, opportunistic, jingoistic, egotistical, wealthy, and warmongering. Roosevelt believed in his own self-promotion as much as he believed in America’s greatness. He saw himself as a philosopher king and demanded the right to centralize power around his presidency. Once he left office, he spent his dying days railing in op-eds against his enemies, unable to find peace.

Roosevelt’s great accomplishment was guiding the fledgling American Republic to become an imperial power that could compete with the great nations of Europe. He legitimized America, fought against domestic corruption, and succeeded at balancing America’s ancient Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian tensions in the manner of a good king.

I enjoy a little bit of romance and mythology in my history, so Brown’s work comes off a bit dry for my taste. But the book is sober and fair. In the Arena is filled with asides, historical tidbits, and pinpricks of harsh criticism that will whet the appetite of readers who love long historical tomes. Brown captures the contradictions of a man like Roosevelt, who, as much as any man can, lived a remarkable life and achieved every ounce of glory that can be achieved in this world alone.