![]() Sarah Watts, author of Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire, says this second Roosevelt, the wild-eyed hunter, was actually the first to emerge, the product of being labeled a “wimp” (his father’s loving term) and a “Nancy boy” as a young New York assemblyman. WATCH: Full episodes of the HISTORY Channel's documentary event, Theodore Roosevelt online now. Mark Twain would come to describe Roosevelt as “clearly insane… and insanest upon war and its supreme glories.” This Roosevelt, historians argue, helped seal the image of the cowboy soldier and physically embodied a new ideal of manliness-epitomized in a band of fighters he formed, called the “ Rough Riders” who would see battle in the Spanish-American War. The other was the self-made “cowboy soldier,” a former asthmatic weakling who hardened his body and will by exposing himself to the harsh elements and lawless violence of the Western frontier. One was the trust-busting progressive who reined in industrialist excess, won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese war, and set aside millions of acres of public land for wildlife conservation. There were two sides to Theodore Roosevelt. ![]()
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