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Hardcover Theodore Roosevelt's History of the United States: His Own Words, Selected and Arranged by Daniel Ruddy Book

ISBN: 0061834327

ISBN13: 9780061834325

Theodore Roosevelt's History of the United States: His Own Words, Selected and Arranged by Daniel Ruddy

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Book Overview

"A splendid piece of work."
-- Edmund Morris

In a unique project, author Daniel Ruddy has carefully extracted Teddy Roosevelt's most relevant and telling comments--from letters, books, speeches, and other sources--and organized them to form a fairly full, always colorful, and highly opinionated history of the United States up to 1919 (the year TR died). With a preface by Theodore Rex author Edmund Morris.

Customer Reviews

5 ratings

T. ROOSEVELT'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES>

Outstanding book. Needs to be required reading in all high schools.I wish that politicians of today were as straight forward as T.R.

A Hubble Telescope-Like Perspective On U.S. History

Do you like your U.S. history undulterated, unfiltered, and frank? If so, this is the book for you. Dan Ruddy has made a unique contribution to U.S. historical literature by capturing the unique insights of Theodore Roosevelt -- the extremely rare individual who was both an accomplished historian and a former U.S. president with four decades "in the arena" of politics. To paraphrase another historian, this book is reminiscent of the Hubble Telescope, which peers deep into the universe by operating from orbit and thereby bypassing the disortions from the Earth's atmosphere. In the same way, through Dan Ruddy's new book we view major historical figures from the perspective of the late 19th century and early 20th century without the distortions of political correctness and contemporary history. Some examples: * Thomas Jefferson: I distrust him and his influence...that slippery demagogue. * Andrew Jackson: ...in many respects he was not more than half civilized......there has never been a more genuinue and rugged American than Old Hickory. * Abraham Lincoln: Perhaps the only genius of our political history....the most real of the dead presidents. * William Jennings Bryan: Bryan is a cheap soul, the cheapest faker we ahve ever had proposed for president. * William Howard Taft: He is a flubdub with a streak of the second-rate and the common in him. There are also some interesting insights on TR: * My business was to take hold of the conservative party and turn it into what it had been under Lincoln, that is, a party of progressive conservatism, or conservative radicalism, for or course wise radicalism and wise conservatism go hand in hand. * When I asked Booker T. Washington to dinner I did not devote very much thought to the matter one way or the other. The very fact that I felt a moment's qualm on inviting him because of his skin color made me ashamed of myself and made me hasten to send the invitation. * A heavily progressive inheritance tax would be far preferable to a national income tax....the great bulf of my social friends violently disagree with me on this point. TR, as highlighted by the above examples, was highly partisan. And this trait, combined with TR's wit and flair for expression, is what makes this book a page turner. There are surprises throughout, and therein lies the magic of this new approach to history.

Hanging Judge

If you could talk with any living or dead person about American history, who would it be? Well, Daniel Ruddy asked himself the same question, and came up with the answwer of Teddy Roosevelt after pouring over his voluminous works and being struck by many of his biting historical observations. Ruddy thoroughly examined the historical record on TR, noting direct quotes from among his 150,000 letters, his books (20 volumes in the National Edition of his collected works), his speeches, newspaper articles concerning him, and even individual accountings of his own words. It is remarkable that Ruiddy has not added a single word of his own to the main text, but has reserved his own professional opinions for the Explanatory Notes section, which I believe to be the best part of the book. To Ruddy's credit, not only is this book carefully researched, but it is also carefully documented, with full explanations as to sources and their contexts. Ruddy also interestingly notes what TR left out of his historical accounts. For example, he notes that TR did not make direct judgments concerning John Adams, and he speculates that this may be because he moved in the same social circles as Adams descendants, Henry and Brooke Adams, and he may have not wanted to "make waves" (although TR personally noted that the "life of the Four Hundred (Washington social elite at the time), struck him as being as flat as stale champagne".) Daniel Ruddy has written a book which takes a new and interesting perspective on traditional tellings of American history, through the eyes of a President who had the advantage of being nearly 100 years closer to the events of our early histroy than we are today. Ruddy makes a genuine contribution both to an understanding of TR'S personal accounting of American history, uncolored by modern historical interpretation, and to a valued insight into his American values and patriotism. To this, Ruddy presents an artfully written piece of literature with many of TR's anecdotes both amusing and profound, adding many entertaining moments....Ruddy notes that TR was a "hanging judge" who did nto hesitate to deliver "unambiguous verdicts" on our nation's leaders, such as calling Thomas Jefferson a "slippery demagogue" or Alexander Hamilton "the most brillant statesmand who ever lived" to John Tyler's "monumental littleness". Of the 43 men who have served as president, only two could legitimately claim to be professional historians, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. However, it is TR who is the one who strikes a cord among today's politicians. One can easily hear his voice today saying "walk softly and---you will go far carry a big stick"....when discussing foreign affairs, or ensuring Washington free of Wall Street "power brokers", a controversy still relevant today. All in all, TR admired men by their actions. He admired Lincoln's spirit and principles, and wanted to achieve something significant and noble in his own life, to be his generation's Linco

Brings TR to life and reaches out to the non-expert reader

As with most non-Americans, I knew little about the writings and acerbic wit of Theodore Roosevelt before reading this book. It is highly readable and and provides an insightful and often very humorous overview of the personalities and politics of the United States in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Daniel Ruddy has done a masterful job in collecting and distilling the words of TR for both a non-expert and non-American audience. This book held me spellbound from beginning to end. The words and wisdom of Roosevelt, together with the innovative and compelling style and structure of Ruddy, render this a must read work that shall stand the test of time. I strongly recommend this to anyone who wants to know more about both TR and early American history.

Teddy Roosevelt as historian. . .

Teddy Roosevelt, much like Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, was a man of giant intellect, a man whose viewpoints confound contemporary thinkers because they're impossible to categorize into one cohesive ideology (at least by today's standards). Both Roosevelt and Holmes have the great distinction of being both championed and simultaneously maligned from both sides of the political spectrum-no small feat. But Teddy Roosevelt didn't earn his place on Mt. Rushmore by happenstance. Love him or hate him, he was a President who changed the course of US History. And that is why this book is so important. We grew up being told that those who didn't know history would be bound to repeat it. Roosevelt shows time and again in this book that he was one of the keenest intellects and most studied minds to ever occupy the Executive branch. What's great about this book is that it is all from the mind of Roosevelt himself. There is no getting hamstrung by sloppy commentary or ideological preening (see Evan Thomas's new tome on Roosevelt for a fine example of fantastic history meeting idiotic commentary). So often do writers and historians make the fatal flaw of trying to interpret the thoughts and actions of historical figures as looked at through a contemporary prism. It's poor scholarship and leads to conclusions that do more harm than good. But here, Ruddy lets Roosevelt speak for himself. The pieces are more than long enough so that the reader isn't left wondering about the true context or whether we were just catching the President on a bad day. And the pieces are put together in such a way that it is easy to see the bigger picture crystallize before ones very eyes. Everything about this book feels objective. There is a sense that we are getting to see the man for who he is, not who we (or the author) would like him to be. Make no mistake, this is not just a collection of writings from Teddy Roosevelt on various topics. Those can be found anywhere. What we have here is one of the most unique pieces of history I've seen. This book is basically a distillation of Roosevelt's thoughts and feelings on the history of this country up through the early 1900's. And the man pulls no punches. Teddy's viewpoints of some of the founding fathers are quite harsh. But like any good student of history, he backs it up with valid and lucid points. Never does one get the impression that he's speaking wildly, accusingly pointing fingers and randomly drawing conclusions to fit a worldview. What we see is that the man has done his homework (and probably some of the other kids homework based on his breadth of knowledge). What makes this even more fascinating is that he comes from a time much closer to the founding of this country than any living person today. His first years of life were spent watching the country try to tear itself in two. He knew men that had actually spent time with some of the founding fathers. He was much closer to living the things
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