Reviews for Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World

The average rating for Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-07-16 00:00:00 Brooke James "[Theodore] Roosevelt found himself on a great flat rock, gazing out…across the whole of New York State. Rolling fog obscured everything but nearer grass and shrubs, yet the sense of being the highest man for hundreds of miles around, cherished by all instinctive climbers, was no doubt pleasing to him. As if in further reward, the clouds unexpectedly parted, sunshine poured down on his head, and for a few minutes a world of trees and mountains and sparkling water lay all around, stretching to infinity…Here, if ever, was an opportunity to look around him at all these lower hills, and to think of the hills that he had himself climbed in life. Pilatus as a boy; Katahdin as an underclassmen; Chestnut Hill as a young lover; the Matterhorn in the ecstasy of honeymoon; the Big Horns in Wyoming, with their bugling elks; the Capitol Hill in Albany, that freezing January night when he first entered politics; Sagamore Hill, his own fertile fortress, full of his children and crowned with triumphant antlers; the Hill in Washington where he twice laid out John Wanamaker; that lowest yet loftiest of hills in Cuba, where like King Olaf on Smalsor Horn he planted his shield…Would he ever rise any higher…?" - Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Everyone, it seems, loves Theodore Roosevelt. He did so many things, and was so many things, in his fully-lived life, that there's an aspect of his personality that anyone - of any political persuasion - can latch onto. A conservationist can support his love of nature, and the creation of the National Park system; a sportsman can support the fact that Teddy would be more than willing to go into those National Parks and shoot (and stuff) any animal that crossed his path. Someone interested in social justice can support the fact that he was a reformer (a friend of Jacob Riis), while a law-and-order type can support the fact that he was tough on crime (he was the NYC Police Commissioner, after all). Democrats like that he was a trust buster; Republicans can get behind his muscular foreign policy. If you look - even if you have to squint - there is something for everyone. Once, he even delivered a speech after getting shot, because of course he did. In The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris gives us the first entry in a trilogy on the overstuffed existence of the 26th President of the United States. It begins with Teddy's birth in 1858, as a tiny fail baby, and ends with his accidental ascension to the presidency in 1901, following the assassination of William McKinley. Between those dates are enough ups, downs, triumphs, tragedies, and adventures for a couple lives. It begs the question as to whether Teddy can be encapsulated in three books, even big ones (my revised and updated paperback edition has 780 pages of text). Morris certainly gives it a pretty good try. Teddy's defining principle is neatly summed up in his famous speech on citizenship in a republic, which he gave at the Sorbonne. Often referred to as "the Man in the Arena" speech, Roosevelt extolled the triumph of daring greatly. While the words have arguably been diluted through repetition, it is a certainty that Roosevelt believed them with all his heart. Teddy Roosevelt started as a sickly, asthmatic boy who liked insects and taxidermy. Before he was fifteen, he'd traveled the world: Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Realizing his physical weakness, he embarked on an ambitious exercise regimen. He attended Harvard and liked to kill animals and stuff them, which I'm pretty sure is the definition of a renaissance man. Morris chronicles all this and more in a way that places you into Theodore Roosevelt's life. Too many biographies maintain a certain formality that manifests itself as distance and lifelessness. These are works that seem content to tell you what happened, and in what order, and maybe even what it might have meant to the world. But few give you that sense of a living, breathing person, and the near-infinite nuances of character that entails. At nearly 800 pages, Morris has the space to cover everything. Not just the obvious stuff, like the tragic death of Roosevelt's first wife, but the littler events that nevertheless shaped Teddy's life. For instance, Morris gets into the specifics of the rough-and-tumble world of New York politics, where Teddy started as a "political hack," became an assemblyman, and eventually lost a bitter mayoral election. Somewhere in that span of years, he also found time to chase down some horse thieves outside his Dakota ranch (Morris helpfully provides a map of this escapade). Surprisingly, one of Teddy's better-known exploits - his charges up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill - are dealt with rather briefly. Which is not to say the passages weren't enjoyable, because they are. Morris is a vivid storyteller, up to the task of narrating his hero's journey. Already [the hill:] was breathing fire at its crest, like a miniature volcano about to erupt, and spitting showers of Mausers. The bullets came whisking through the grass with vicious effectiveness as the Rough Riders crawled nearer. Every now and again a trooper would leap involuntarily into the air, then crumple into a nerveless heap. Roosevelt remained obstinately on horseback, determined to set an example of courage to his men. Roosevelt won the Medal of Honor for his actions. Then he went back to America and became Governor of New York. And this was after he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. It is all a bit exhausting. With all these great deeds and derring-do, my favorite section of the book was on Roosevelt the writer. Morris does a commendable job analyzing Teddy's literary efforts, which include The Naval War of 1812, a biography on Thomas Hart Benton, and his mammoth project, The Winning of the West. It's fascinating to see how Teddy's writings foreshadowed his concept of America, which became important when he ascended to the presidency. With any biography, there comes the question of bias, either pro or con. On the whole, I thought Morris's treatment of Roosevelt was quite fair. Obviously, he loves the guy, but he avoids hyperbole and hagiography, and doesn't get swept up in Roosevelt's theatrics. This is no small feat, since Roosevelt was a skilled writer himself, and his stories got better with the telling. Morris does note some of Teddy's darker characteristics (such as questionable racial views), but he doesn't dwell long on them. Morris started life as a writer, rather than a historian, and this is demonstrated with his craftsmanship. However, his literary flair occasionally got the better of him, such as his controversial decision to insert a fictional narrator in his authorized biography of Ronald Reagan. Morris - who died in May 2019 - does not attempt any such tricks here. While there are times he attempts to divine Teddy's thoughts or feelings, this is a matter of fact-based interpretation, rather than wholesale creation. I'm not a Roosevelt expert by any means, but when I perused the endnotes, the sourcing looked top-notch (and the annotations rather enjoyable). At this point, I have an admission: There's always been something about Teddy Roosevelt that just bugs the hell out of me. This is not hate, by any means, but more of a low-key irritation. Partly, his contradictions are so extreme as to feel premediated. It is the epitome of trying too hard. At times, I wanted to scream: I get it! You like to herd cows while reading Tolstoy! You've made your point!. There is also too much of the moneyed dilettante about him, pugnaciously blustering on about how hard work achieves everything, never once recognizing that he was born into a life of privilege, wealth, country homes, and extended European holidays. In other words, while he's telling people to pull themselves out of the bog, he ignores how he sprung into this world halfway up the ladder. That said, it would have been easy for a man born of such privilege to rest on that privilege. He could have lived safe and comfortably, studying his bugs, reading his books, carefully treating his asthma. But that is not what he did. Instead, he lived a life in which he tried to experience the whole world, and in the process, changed it forever.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-12-06 00:00:00 Alan Sigwardt I can't remember the last time I was so glad to have finished a book. Clearly, this is an award-winning work with lots of glowing reviews. From about the middle of the book on, it was a slog to get through. I won't say the book itself is bad, as it was meticulously researched and written. I think it's more a case of what I was expecting, and what I instead got from this that caused the problem. What I expected: 1. I wanted to know TR as a human being: personal, professional, spiritual, social. 2. I wanted to understand his family life. 3. I wanted a flavor for the times in which he lived. I wanted to know what it was like to live in the mid-to-late 1800s in America. 4. I wanted to be entertained. I wanted to learn something. I wanted to be moved. What do all of us want when we pick up a book? This is one of our best known presidents. Ideally, I wanted to come away with a great respect and admiration for the subject. What I got: 1. If you're familiar with the Seinfeld episode about the "minutia", then I could stop this review right here. The book started with so much promise. I thought I was getting everything in my list. I was so happy to have been recommended this book. This lasted for a couple hundred pages, when TR's young life was covered. I wasn't getting a good flavor for the times, but it seemed we could be headed in that direction. Wrong. 2. If you are a hunter and can picture yourself literally dancing with glee after shooting an animal (TR actually did this after shooting his first buffalo. I have to say, he lost a lot of my respect at that point. I can appreciate people who hunt for meat, even though I wouldn't do it unless I was actually starving. But to dance with glee after shooting an animal with a rifle? Takes it a bit far, sorry), then by all means read this book. You will get LOTS, and I do mean lots, of detail about every animal he shot: where the bullet went in, where it came out, in some cases where the bullet went after exiting, information in short that no one wants to know. Really, does even the most avid sportsman want to hear this? I ask you. There were whole chapters devoted to hunting details. Not kidding. 3. You will get chapter and verse and verse and verse about every job he took, and almost what he did every day at that job. I'm really not exaggerating. Details at the level that you'd be totally uninterested unless you were writing an assigned paper about TR. And even then, I don't think even the scholars are interested in that level of minutia. 4. The Spanish-American war was covered. I still don't understand why this happened and what was the real end result. Really? In a book with so much pointless detail, you can't give the reader a real understanding of this conflict? It would only take a paragraph or two. I'm not looking to write an article about it, but a good basic understanding would be nice in a book over 900 pages long. I came in with no understanding, so perhaps the intended audience already had an understanding of that war. Ok, fine. But we got tons and tons of totally pointless detail about hills, ridges. You talk about missing the forest for the trees. Classic case right here. 5. Once he marries, you get virtually nothing about his family life, how he relates to his wife and kids. Almost zilch. This was a big surprise to me. So that about sums it up. Never write a sentence when a whole chapter (or multiple chapters) would do. If the details were interesting, fine. I expect lots of interesting detail in a book this long; in fact, that's what I'm looking for. Morris ran out of interesting a couple hundred pages in. I'd give this book one star but for the promising, engaging beginning.