The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History By Laurence Jurdem Pegasus Books, 2023. $32
LAURENCE JURDEM sifts through the extensive correspondence of and between Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, their personal diaries, and previous biographies, to describe their long friendship and mutual influence. The book describes in detail the 35-year friendship between Roosevelt and Lodge through its ups and downs to show how that relationship influenced American politics from 1884 to 1919. The book is well-written, covering both personal-family matters and political matters, often with fine details about their daily life.
The two men met in 1884, when they both served as delegates to the Republican convention to select a presidential candidate, Roosevelt from New York and Lodge from Massachusetts. Members of the more liberal wing of the party, both men strongly opposed the candidacy of James G. Blaine, the favorite of the party stalwarts, whose choice eventually won the nomination. The different reactions of Lodge and Roosevelt to this defeat is indicative of their different personalities. Lodge, more politically pragmatic, went on to support the nominee and gained respect within the party, while Roosevelt, depressed and angry, withdrew to the Dakota Territory, feeling that his political life was over. In November, Democrat Grover Cleveland defeated Blaine to become the 22nd president.
Throughout their lives from that point the two remained close friends, exchanging long letters, visiting each other’s homes, and working out political strategies together. Lodge became a Senator from Massachusetts, while Roosevelt rose in the political arena to become the 26th President in 1901, in no small part because of the constant encouragement and support of Lodge. Although the two had a serious falling out over Roosevelt’s third-party candidacy in 1916, the election of Woodrow Wilson brought them back together, as both men hated the Democrat. —Barbara Finlay
Foreign Policy Intrigue
There has never been a great power with so decisive a strategic geographical advantage as the United States. America developed into an economic, political, military, and cultural power with oceans to its east and west, protecting the budding nation-state from easy interventions from Europe or Asia. Its neighbors to the north and, the country’s uniquely favorable geography and political values did not dispel the fears of late 19th- and early 20th-century American statesman that insidious forces abroad threatened the United States’ very existence.
