Reads on U.S. presidency, UK monarchy
Inauguration Day focuses our minds on leaders.
Two recent books enlighten on presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
A biography of Queen Elizabeth II of England illuminates the campaign-style maneuvering behind her 70-year reign.
The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women who Created a President, by Edward F. O’Keefe, Simon & Schuster, 2024, 464 pages
We think we know Theodore Roosevelt. A sickly child, he willed himself into a physically active man.
At 24, having lost his young wife in childbirth and his mother on the same day, he escaped to the Badlands of North Dakota, where he became a rancher, hunter and conservationist, leading a “strenuous life.” He then married a woman he had dated at Harvard.
Roosevelt became assistant secretary of the Navy, governor of New York, vice president and the youngest and first modern president of the United States.
Three years after his landslide victory, he declared himself a lame duck. Disenchanted with his successor, he ran again as the Bull Moose candidate and lost. He died at age 60, a broken man.
All true. However, the full story fascinates. Historian Edward O’Keeffe, president of the Theodore Roosevelt Library Foundation, uncovered documents lost for 70 years.
His thorough and excellently written must-read biography emphasizes that Roosevelt lived within a milieu of strong-minded women — his mother, Mittie; his sisters, especially his older sibling, Bamie; and his wives, notably his second, Edith.
Roosevelt’s female family members influenced his forward-looking position on women’s rights. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before women’s suffrage, Bamie and Edith gave Theodore the benefit of their insights. Astonishingly for that era, he took their advice.
At a pivotal point, Bamie used her connections to get him the job that made his career take off. Whenever he failed to take their advice, he regretted his unilateralism.
The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama, by Gabriel Debenedetti, Holt Paperbacks, 2023, 432 pages
Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign emphasized his vice presidency with Barack Obama. But when he became president, Biden criticized his former boss as timid.
Gabriel Debenedetti’s thoroughly researched book gives us the complicated, ever-changing truth about the two men’s friendship in engrossing detail. With this book, we now have a complete picture of this complicated subject. Debenedetti works as the national correspondent for New York Magazine.
When Obama entered the Senate, he asked Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, for a seat on the panel. Biden agreed, but viewed Obama as a lightweight. Indeed, after agreeing to join the 2008 ticket and promising not to run for president, reportedly Biden railed that he, not Obama, was qualified to be president.
Biden never stopped seeking the presidency. In 2016, when Biden wanted to run, he resented that Obama advised against it. In 2020, when Obama remained neutral in the nominating process, Biden said publicly that he asked Obama not to endorse him, but reports persist that Biden remains furious.
Warmth clearly existed between the two, though. Obama offered to help with expenses related to Biden’s oldest son’s terminal brain cancer. The president also authorized a White House venue for the funeral and delivered a moving eulogy for Beau Biden.
Q: A Voyage Around the Queen, by Craig Brown, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024, 662 pages
Do monarchs need to court popular acclaim? Q: A Voyage Around the Queen, combining biography, social history and imagination, says yes.
Published in October, the comprehensive narrative by British author Craig Brown shows how an understated, self-effacing queen — an aspiring actress — kept her job through changing times.
Anti-German feeling in World War I left the Royal House, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, on shaky ground. With guile, King George V stabilized matters.
He changed the Germanic family name to the Shakesperean, Windsor, regularly addressed the Empire over the BBC, and became a beloved public personality.
Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, solidified the monarchy with his genuine courage. He stayed in Buckingham Palace with his family during the Blitz and toured bombed-out neighborhoods.
Brown’s portrayal reveals how Elizabeth, with a mixture of artifice and authenticity, mastered her own official persona. He cites anecdotes about Marilyn Monroe, Paul McCartney and even the Queen’s governess. Brown mentions Elizabeth’s preference for her horses and corgis over humans.
Despite no table of contents, index or chapter headings, Brown’s vignettes reward the persistent reader. Considering his public outbursts and uneven relations with the Commonwealth, perhaps King Charles III should read them.
