Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition by Jean M. Yarbrough (review)

A century after Theodore Roosevelt took over the Progressive Party to launch his monumental 1912 election campaign against Republican William Howard Taft, which helped to elect Democrat Woodrow Wilson, his bitter rival, the American fascination with "TR" continues. Although his face is chiseled into Mount Rushmore, this Roosevelt is most remembered as a man in perpetual motion, the hyperactive president, forever dynamic, spewing bombast from the Bully Pulpit. Twelve years in the making, Yarbrough's book offers a rare look at Roosevelt the thinker, not just the doer and orator, offering a better understanding of Roosevelt as a reformer who was far bolder than his veneration of the Founders and his current reputation as a conservative—the Republican Roosevelt—suggest.

Yarbrough has produced a thoughtful intellectual assessment of one of America's great presidents that sits elegantly at the intersection of history, political science, sociology, and philosophy. Historians will enjoy this well-researched, insightful work as a biography—intrigued by Yarbrough's argumentative stance toward progressivism, wherein she challenges both "the progressive narrative itself" and what she calls progressivism's "relentless push toward greater equality in the name of social justice" (3, 4). Political scientists will benefit from how she situates Roosevelt within America's political development, placing her spotlight on his important role in shifting America away from its traditional political structure toward a more president-centered, activist government. Sociologists will particularly appreciate the opportunity, provided in Chapter 1, to go "back to school with Roosevelt" (6); Yarbrough read all of the books that he was assigned at Harvard College and Columbia University Law School, rooting many of his presidential actions in what he learned as a student. Finally, American political philosophers will gain a better sense of Roosevelt's and progressivism's impact on American political thought and the nation's experiment in republican self-government.

This clear, well-organized book follows the first chapter on Roosevelt's education with chapters assessing his historical works, his altruistic turn to politics, his first uses of executive power, and his stewardship of America as a powerful chief executive. The last chapter analyzes his emergence as a "Progressive Crusader" (194), who, Yarbrough laments, deviated from the American Founders' vision of limited government.

The epilogue disappoints to some extent. After carefully cataloguing, contextualizing, and critiquing Roosevelt's thought, Yarbrough shows how Roosevelt's ideas and image are frequently cannibalized, and even caricatured, today, but she does not explain why. In fact, she appears to be more delighted that her subject is still remembered and relevant than distressed that his legacy has proved so plastic.

Nonetheless, the book ends on a plaintive, argumentative, yet substantive note, expressing frustration about Roosevelt's role in unleashing "top-down bureaucratic control" and sacrificing "individual rights in the name of collective rights" (271). Yarbrough makes it clear that, overall, she is less disturbed about what Roosevelt did or thought than about the kind of discouraging, bloated, collectivist government that America has developed.