(Theodore Roosevelt at his Sagamore Hill home).
There are numerous memorable biographies of Theodore Roosevelt. The best include the three volume work of Edmund Morris, Henry Pringle’s Pulitzer prize winning effort, David McCullogh’s National Book Award MORNING ON HORSEBACK, and Kathleen Dalton, H.W. Brands, and Nathan Miller’s critical works, among others. There are also a series of books that focus on critical aspects of Roosevelt’s life. Among the best include Douglas Brinkley’s discussion of Roosevelt’s environmental work to Candice Millard’s incredible adventure of Roosevelt’s exploration of a tributary of the Amazon. Based on this summary, why should I read another book on Roosevelt? For me, the reason is clear, it is because of David S. Brown whose biographies include subjects like Henry Adams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Hofstadter and Andrew Jackson, which are exceptional. When his latest endeavor appeared; IN THE ARENA:THEODORE ROOSEVELT IN WAR, PEACE, AND REVOLUTION I was hooked.
After consuming Brown’s work, it is clear that it is well written, researched, and prepared for the general reader in addition to scholarly historians. Roosevelt’s life is fully captured with all of its positives and warts. Brown successfully integrates wonderful personal vignettes regarding Roosevelt’s life, along with his speeches, letters, and writings. My main concern is the depth that certain aspects of the book present. Though some areas are given complete attention, i.e., Roosevelt’s break with Howard Taft and the Election of 1912 his relationship with his father, Roosevelt’s attitude toward American entrance into World War One I wish he had spent more time on Roosevelt’s presidency, his philosophical evolution toward a progressive agenda, and his racist views and how they impacted his policies as for me they form the core of who he was as a person. I am not suggesting these areas are not discussed, but I wish the author had delved into them more completely.
Brown does argue convincingly that Roosevelt was a dichotomy; he was an imperialist, possessed racist ideas, whose upbringing was one of privilege and wealth. At the same time, he was a reformer whose progressivism led him to at times stand up to plutocrats by pursuing antitrust actions against monopolies, setting aside public lands for conservation, and future government assistance programs. He embodied a strong domestic program and a personalized foreign policy whose popularity rested on his charisma. Brown is correct that his subject can be seen as a bridge between the Gilded Age and the new industrial era as he captured the attention of the middle class making him a beloved leader.
(Theodore Roosevelt and his family)
At the outset Brown takes the reader through Roosevelt’s early years as he evolved from a blend of “northern hustle and southern Huguenotism” which created family tension dating back to the Civil War. Brown presents the traditional exploration of his childhood and stresses his relationship with his father and how impactful it was for his development. He absorbed a “decidedly Victorian world view” and his father would not tolerate selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardness or untruthfulness, principles Roosevelt mostly followed throughout his life.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book is Roosevelt’s intellectual development, carefully focusing on his childhood travels , education at Harvard and his own writings as he developed as a historian. Brown successfully created the atmosphere surrounding Roosevelt’s life’s work, in addition to dissecting his writings and how we can see his later actions as a function of his earlier intellectual pursuits. Roosevelt developed into a Social Darwinist, though he was uncomfortable with the massive accumulation of wealth he experienced during the Gilded Age.
One of the main themes of the book is Roosevelt’s belief in moving on whether dealing with tragedy, the end of his presidency, or political defeat. Following the death of his mother and his first wife on the same day, despite the fact he had a baby daughter Roosevelt had little time for tragedy and refused to sit still and engage in a long mourning process – he always seemed to live in the moment drawn to the next event as was the case when he abandoned his family and left for the life of a rancher/cowboy in the Dakotas. This trend can also be seen upon the conclusion of his presidency in a detailed chapter entitled “African Exile” when Roosevelt spent a year traveling and hunting big game. Lastly, after his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon.
Brown discusses most of Roosevelt’s pre-presidential career from serving as a New York State Assemblyman, his role as New York City Police Commissioner and the Civil Service Commission, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and his involvement in the Spanish-American War. All are explored sequentially with each experience leading to the next as if they are linked.
Roosevelt’s friendship with Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Corporate banker and Secretary of War Elihu Root, and Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary, and later Secretary of State John Hay who are important because of their attempts to influence Roosevelt and keep him from making poor political decisions. This is especially important as Roosevelt wages his battles with what he perceives to be the influence of the Railroad, oil and steel barons. Roosevelt engaged in many battles apart from corporate types, but in a sense they are linked as the plutocrats like Mark Hanna and the Republican “Old Guard” tried to control him.
Roosevelt’s role as an imperialist is developed by Brown through his friendship with Lodge, Alfred Mahan and Brooks Adams who are described as forming a ”jingoistic social club” as they all lobbied for a large naval fleet and the overseas possessions that would be needed to implement an American Empire. The pursuit of empire is another major theme with racist overtones as the seizure of the Panama Canal is discussed as are events concerning Cuba, and the Philippines.
Brown makes many salient points that help the reader understand Roosevelt’s raison ‘d’etre in many areas. For example, he argues that Roosevelt was not a true progressive until his inability to convince corporate leaders to see reason drove him toward a more reformist agenda. In the end his developing Square Deal, the breakup of trusts, ending mine strikes are emblematic of his approach as he plays a major role in the evolution of classical liberalism to New Deal liberalism. As much as Brown highlights aspects of the Square Deal and later Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, both could have been dealt with in greater detail.
Brown successfully uses Roosevelt’s “ego” as a tool to explain his approach to policy and negotiation as we witness in his role in the Treaty of Portsmouth that brought the Russo-Japanese War to conclusion. As his daughter Alice remarked, “my father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening.” Roosevelt’s ego is fully on display as he bolts the Republican Party and runs for president under the banner of the Bull Moose Party in addition to his attitude toward Woodrow Wilson and American entrance into World War I. Once the United States entered the war Roosevelt’s pressure to create a regiment to fight in Europe reconfirmed how large his ego had become even in his late fifties. Perhaps had he controlled this personality flaw he could have influenced American history more favorably than he did.
In the foreign policy sphere Roosevelt was very insightful with a tinge of racism. In dealing with Japan, he saw them as “Asian whites” who he eventually worried eventually would become a competitor in East Asia. He did not trust the Slavs, Russian in particular, and worried about the Germans. He would warn his contemporaries about these three countries and many of his fears would come to fruition.
(President William Howard Taft)
At the conclusion of the book Brown attempts to draw a comparison of Roosevelt with Donald Trump. There are some similarities in terms of ego and presidency, but Roosevelt never used the federal government and the American people as tools to line his and his families pockets. Further, the corruption that surrounds Trump and his minions is in no way similar to Roosevelt. This one page comparison dulls my overall favorable opinion of Brown’s efforts.
In conclusion, Gerard Helferich’s December 29, 2025, Wall Street Journal book review, “In the Arena’ Review: The Enigma of Teddy is well worth consulting. “More than a century later, what are we to make of Roosevelt’s crowded life in the arena? (The phrase comes from a speech he gave in 1910.) “It is from contrary opinions,” Mr. Brown writes, “that we often come upon insight, balance, and unexpected perspective.”
Roosevelt is a paradoxical figure. He was a political progressive who abhorred radicalism, an anti-monopolist who recognized the inevitability of large corporations and chose to regulate rather than ban them. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt expanded U.S. military power, promoted imperialism and exploited his status as a war hero for political gain. While espousing America as a land of opportunity, he professed bigoted views concerning nonwhites and non-Europeans. He was a nature-loving conservationist and an unrepentant big-game hunter, a Victorian moralist who betrayed his own party and skirted the law when it suited his purposes.
Faced with such a multifaceted figure, the best biographies of Roosevelt strike a balanced portrait of a man who was forward-looking but not immune to the prejudices of his times, an individual who, though admirable in many ways, was undeniably flawed. Taking his cue from Richard Hofstadter, an influential 20th-century American historian and Roosevelt revisionist, Mr. Brown hews largely to contrary opinions. The author cites Roosevelt’s critics prominently, and his own approval is grudging and qualified.
Mr. Brown gives short shrift to Roosevelt’s unparalleled record on the conservation of public land. Roosevelt’s challenge to Wall Street, he writes, “was largely a bully pulpit affair, with rhetoric exceeding action.” He faintly praises foundational laws regulating corporations and protecting workers as “real if measured achievements.” As to character, Mr. Brown portrays Roosevelt as a “flaming exhibitionist” with “megalomania” and “Napoleonic swagger.” Other detractors have made similar points, and though exaggerated, the criticisms bear a germ of truth. But Mr. Brown, in his refusal to credit counterbalancing positives, such as Roosevelt’s prodigious intellect or his genuine empathy for the less fortunate, risks reducing TR to a one-dimensional straw man.”
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