Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness

by Joshua David Hawley, David M. Kennedy (Foreword)

Often dismissed by scholars as an opportunistic politician whose ideas lacked historical import, Theodore Roosevelt has been underestimated as a thinker. But to disdain Roosevelt’s politics is to overlook his important and lasting contributions to the shape of modern America, says the author of this compelling new study of the 26th president of the United States. Joshua Hawley examines Roosevelt’s political thought more deeply than ever before to arrive at a fully revised understanding of his legacy: Roosevelt galvanized a twenty-year period of national reform that permanently altered American politics and Americans’ expectations for government, social progress, and presidents.

 

The book explores the historical context of Theodore Roosevelt’s politics, its intellectual sources, its practice, and its effect on his era and our own. Hawley finds that Roosevelt developed a coherent political science centered on the theme of righteousness, and this “warrior republicanism” was what made the progressive era possible. The debates of Roosevelt’s era were driven largely by his ideas, and from those debates emerged the grammar of our contemporary politics. Casting new light on the fertility and breadth of Roosevelt’s thought, Hawley reveals the full extent of his achievement in twentieth-century intellectual history.

Genres: The United States Of America

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 24, 2008

Reviews

[Nick Solheim · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, now-Senator Josh Hawley dutifully crafts an ideological journey and profile of America’s last progressive republican president — Theodore Roosevelt.

Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness provides a consistent framework for Roosevelt’s complex (by today’s standards) ideology through the years, from his time in the Dakota Territory to his twilight years of the Wilson presidency. Also present is a deep-dive into Roosevelt’s abhorrent racial and eugenic policies that underpin his view of the nation-state.

The most fascinating thing about this book is the comparisons between Wilson’s politics of individual liberty and liberal internationalism and Roosevelt’s politics of virtue and “peace through strength” nationalism. Hawley notes that the Republican and Democrat political theory realigned after Roosevelt’s death and Wilson’s presidency, with many Republicans adopting Wilson’s liberal internationalist foreign policy and skepticism of government violating individual liberty. Essentially, that Republicans like to harken back to Roosevelt’s style of politics, but are much more wary to adopt his cultural illiberalism and economic interventionism.

The book ends with a call to adopt Roosevelt’s nationalism, sense of national unity, and fighting spirit while leaving behind his racialized politics and win-at-all-costs mentality.

Through this book, it is clear that Senator Hawley is frequently misunderstood as a reactionary — He is obviously extremely well-read, knowledgeable, and possesses a token of TR’s bull moose spirit. All the more impressive that he wrote about the Republican Party’s return to nationalism in 2008, long before the election of Donald Trump.

[Farrell Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much like Roosevelt's presidency, the book started stronger than it finished. More a reflection of his shifting views than anything else. Author does a good job tracking TR's intellectual growth from origins to the point where he lost his political and ideological movement to Taft and Wilson. I think he lost his real vitality somewhere along the way.

[Xenophon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant.

Full review to come.

[Raully · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hawley's justification for writing yet another biography of TR is that he intends to look behind his celebrity-style persona and his rough rider image and examine the intellectual foundations of his life. He treats TR more as a political philosopher (sometimes exposing rather painful conceptions and placing them in the context of Edwardian America) than as a political actor. When Hawley does do this, his biography is second to none. When he laspes instead into TR's political slugfests and the socio-economic characteristics of the Gilded Age, the biography loses its zip and becomes a bit more rote. Still, I think it is the most useful biography of TR for the scholar, or for anyone interested in religious ideas translated into political action, but at times it may not be the most interesting one.

[Aiesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hawley is certainly a Northerner and regards TR well but he also lays TR out there for the reader to judge and the information is very telling as to the real character and motives of TR