Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“Many books have been written about Theodore Roosevelt the man, but Yarbrough admirably captures Roosevelt the thinker. The true value of Yarbrough’s book, however, is not its exegesis of Roosevelt, sound as that is, but in its compelling representation of Roosevelt as an avatar of profound shifts in American political thinking. The main elements of this shift are the replacement of the mechanisms of constitutional politics with the organicism of German state theory; the shift to presidential politics as the embodiment of the new nationalism; the alterations of the Framers’ ideas of human nature and liberty; and the problematic resolution of the tensions between liberty and equality in the idea of fraternity. Yarbrough adroitly contrasts Roosevelt’s emergent Progressivism with the traditional ideas found in the Declaration of Independence, demonstrating how the Progressive movement reconstituted US politics. Her sense of Roosevelt’s place in the American political tradition is sure. Yarbrough gives a full accounting of the race-based and scientistic (Darwinian) assumptions that undergirded Roosevelt’s aspirations toward national greatness and large-scale communitarian politics. The book is written in an accessible, clear style. Summing up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.” -
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