Theodore Rex

The most eagerly awaited presidential biography in years <strong>Theodore Rex</strong> is asequel to Edmund Morriss classic bestseller The Rise of Theodore Roos... » 

The most eagerly awaited presidential biography in years Theodore Rex is asequel to Edmund Morriss classic bestseller The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Itbegins by following the new President still the youngest in American historyas he comes down from Mount Marcy New York to take his emergency oath ofoffice in Buffalo one hundred years ago.A detailed prologue describes TRs assumption of power and journey toWashington with the assassinated President McKinley riding behind him like aghost of the nineteenth century. Trains rumble throughout this irresistiblymoving narrative as TR crosses and recrosses the nation. Traveling souththrough a succession of haunting landscapes TR encounters harbingers of allthe major issues of the new centuryImperialism Industrialism ConservationImmigration Labor Raceplus the overall challenge that intimidated McKinleyhow to harness Americas new power as the worlds richest nation.Theodore Rex the title is taken from a quip by Henry James tells the story ofthe following seven and a half yearsyears in which TR entertains infuriatesamuses strongarms and seduces the body politic into a state of almost totalsubservience to his will. It is not always a pretty story one of therevelations here is that TR was hated and feared by a substantial minority ofhis fellow citizens. Wall Street the white South Western lumber barons evenhis own Republican leadership in Congress strive to harness his steadilyincreasing power.Within weeks of arrival in Washington TR causes a nationwide sensation bybecoming the first President to invite a black man to dinner in the WhiteHouse. Next he launches his famousprosecution of the Northern SecuritiesCompany and follows up with landmark antitrust legislation. He liberates Cubadetermines the route of the Panama Canal mediates the great Anthracite Strikeand resolves the Venezuela Crisis of 19021903 with such masterful secrecy thatthe w «