The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and The Crusade for America By Douglas Brinkley; Harper; 940 pages
It is a testament to the unparalleled hugeness of his life that a nearly thousand-page biography of Theodore Roosevelt is still capable of breaking new ground. Teddy as trust buster, canal builder, militarist and big-stick carrier is familiar enough. Less well known are his epic efforts, detailed here by historian Douglas Brinkley, as a conservationist-preservationist. By the end of his second presidential term, Roosevelt had "set aside more than 234 million acres of America for posterity." Half the size of the Louisiana Purchase, these federally...