The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

by Candice Millard

In a lifetime of remarkable achievement, Roosevelt had shaped his own character—and that of his country—through sheer force of will, relentlessly choosing action over inaction, and championing what he famously termed “the strenuous life.”

Theodore Senior loomed large in the lives of all of his children, but for his older son he was idol, hero, and savior.

“Theodore, you have the mind but you have not the body,” he said, “and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body. It is hard drudgery to make one’s

Whereas the Monroe Doctrine barred Europe from intervening in the affairs of any country in the Western Hemisphere, the Roosevelt Corollary asserted America’s right to intervene whenever it felt compelled.

“I love peace, but it is because I love justice and not because I am afraid of war,”

“He who has once been a king has always the right of majesty.”