Theodore Rex [ABRIDGED] [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio CD)

I listened to this book about 2 years ago. A fine book detailing the life of Teddy Roosevelt one of the great American Presidents. This was a man with a great appetite for everything in life. His hunting was big, his political career was supersize, his dedication to his causes and what he got done for them were big too. You can learn a lot about the way American politics is run in this book through his life. Although times have changed some of the basic workings of political life has not changed much. This was the first guy who understood the power of the bully pulpit, which still defines an important way in which the presidency operates, even in this era where anyone having an internet connection can have a pulpit. Here is also a president who sowed the seeds of American imperialism, which is still an important tendency of American foreign policy. Here is also a hunter and a conservationist who did so much to the cause of environment. American presidents still reach over to conservation initiatives for defining their legacies and Teddy set the blueprint for the grand presidential conservation initiatives. Here is also a Republican who started out representing the interests of the rich and the powerful and who turned into a polar opposite of a progressive minded populist reformer. For me, while this book illustrated all of the above points about Teddy, the essence of what i got from this book was a portrait of a man of BIG ambition, BIG actions, BIG appetite, BIG impact and BIG legacy.