By the final chapter, as the great 'Teddy' prepares to quit the White House, it will be a hard-hearted listener who does not share the sentiment of Henry Adams: 'The old house will seem dull and sad when my Theodore has gone. It is written throughout in real time, reflecting the world as TR saw it.

Theodore Rex does not attempt to justify TR's notorious action following the Brownsville Incident of 1906 - his worst mistake as president - but neither does this resolutely honest biography indulge in the easy wisdom of hindsight. Interspersed with many stories of Rooseveltian triumphs are some bitter episodes - notably a devastating lynching - that remind us of America's deep prejudices and fears. Surprisingly, this victory transforms him from a patrician conservative to a progressive, responsible between 19 for a raft of enlightened legislation. TR's speed of thought and action, and his total command of all aspects of presidential leadership, from bureaucratic subterfuge to manipulation of the press, make him all but invincible in 1904, when he wins a second term by a historic landslide.

Theodore Rex, full of cinematic detail, moves with the exhilarating pace of a novel, yet it rides on a granite base of scholarship. The most eagerly awaited presidential biography in years, Theodore Rex begins by following new president Theodore Roosevelt as he takes his emergency oath of office in Buffalo, upon the assassination of President McKinley one hundred years ago. The gap between those books is so large because Morris spent most of his time working on his memoir of Ronald Regan.

Theodore rex book review