The Wilderness Warrior

August 15, 2009
Brinkley (history, Rice Univ.; "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast") details President Roosevelt's status as an American folk hero, his battles with political and corporate dissenters, and the friends and enemies he made in his fight to preserve the U.S. wilderness through the creation of national parks and monuments, bird and game reservations, and national forests. Brinkley heaps praise on Roosevelt for his preservation of over 230 million acres of wilderness, detailing Roosevelt's reading, his naturalist hobbies, and the people he drew around him who crucially worked to save American wilderness areas. VERDICT While this very readable biography showcases an impressive amount of research, at over 900 pages, the pace is slowed down by simply too much information about the scientists, politicians, and explorers Roosevelt knew and by the extravagant descriptions of wildlife. Best suited for academics, armchair historians, or the most avid of biography enthusiasts. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 11/15/08.]Crystal Goldman, San Jose St. Univ. Lib., CA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2009
How to reconcile Teddy Roosevelt, the big-game hunter, with President Roosevelt, the revolutionary environmentalist? Gifted and versatile historian Brinkley foregrounds Roosevelts profound passion for nature in a biography as expansive and radiant as the glorious landscapes Roosevelt zealously preserved. The length of this engrossing portrait indicates the primacy of Roosevelts conservation efforts, yet Brinkley is the first to explicate the full story, and just in time. As environmental concerns intensify, Roosevelts battles to preserve forests, grasslands, mountains, and the habitats of birds, fish, and diverse animal species, so lucidly chronicled here, provide crucial guidance. Brinkley writes with particular empathy about how precocious, asthmatic Roosevelt discovered the healing powers of nature, and trained himself to become an irrepressible naturalist, and covers with fluent insights Roosevelts extensive travels, sparkling writing, and professionalization of forestry and wildlife protection. A poetic warrior on a great wildlife crusade who believed that conservation efforts are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method, Roosevelt created national forests (150), bird reserves (51), and parks and monuments (24), preserving such wonders as the Grand Canyon. Teddy Roosevelts mighty legacy consists of the places he saved and the ecological vision he shared.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 1, 2009
An appropriately vigorous and larger-than-life-but also detailed and carefully documented-biography of the visionary president who put so much land and so many resources in the public trust.
Brinkley (History/Rice Univ.; The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, 2006, etc.) makes an important contribution to our understanding of Theodore-never "Teddy" to anyone who knew him, Brinkley cautions-Roosevelt as conservationist and preservationist by providing both a personal and an intellectual genealogy. On the personal side, Roosevelt was descended from Dutch New Yorkers who worked the land and knew its ways. His father was a founding member of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where young Theodore logged considerable time. On the intellectual front, he was an ardent student of animal life. "At a very early age" , Brinkley writes, "Theodore Roosevelt started studying the anatomy of more than 600 species of birds in North America. You might say that his natural affinity for ornithology was part of his metabolism." Certainly, his active interest in the outdoors and constant sojourns in wild places helped Roosevelt overcome youthful sickliness. Moreover, he became a vocal champion of evolutionary theory, then fairly new. Treading carefully, Brinkley suggests how Roosevelt's understanding of Darwin's contributions to biology figured in with his social-Darwinist notions of empire, manifest destiny and the white man's burden. The author also shows us how, as president, Roosevelt brought so much of the public domain under the strong protection of the federal government, adding millions of acres to the national parks, forests and lands systems. He did this in part by building and working a network of like-minded preservationists. Brinkley highlights the work of long-forgotten congressional allies such as Rep. John F. Lacey of Iowa, who"did more to protect migratory birds than any other politician in American history besides Theodore Roosevelt."

Magisterial and timely, given the manifold environmental crises facing the current administration.

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