Theodore Roosevelt Book Award

Presented for exceptional scholarship to the most distinguished published book on Theodore Roosevelt.

2022

Theodore Roosevelt, Preaching from the Bully Pulpit
Benjamin J. Wetzel

2021

The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism
Susan Berfield, Author
Bloomsbury Publishing, Publisher

Susan Berfield is an award-winning feature writer and investigative reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg News. The Hour of Fate, her first book, was supported by a Logan Nonfiction Fellowship.

A riveting narrative of Wall Street buccaneering, political intrigue, and two of American history’s most colossal characters, struggling for mastery in an era of social upheaval and rampant inequality. It seemed like no force in the world could slow J. P. Morgan’s drive to power. In the summer of 1901, the financier was assembling his next mega-deal: Northern Securities, an enterprise that would affirm his dominance in America’s most important industry―the railroads.

Then, a bullet from an anarchist’s gun put an end to the business-friendly presidency of William McKinley. A new chief executive bounded into office: Theodore Roosevelt. He was convinced that as big business got bigger, the government had to check the influence of the wealthiest or the country would inch ever closer to collapse. With millions of dollars on the line, winter bearing down, and revolution in the air, it was a crisis that neither man alone could solve.

Richly detailed and propulsively told, The Hour of Fate is the gripping story of a banker and a president thrown together in the crucible of national emergency even as they fought in court. The outcome of the strike and the case would change the course of our history.

The award will be presented via Zoom later this year.

2020

Great Power Rising, Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy
John M. Thompson, Author
Oxford University Press, Publisher

Dr. Thompson is a Senior Strategic Analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, where he leads a range of projects in the fields of U.S. foreign policy, transatlantic relations, and European security. Before joining the HCSS, he was Head of the Global Security Team at the Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich and Lecturer at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin. He holds degrees from the University of Cambridge, the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and the University of St. Thomas.

This book examines the relationship between domestic politics and Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy.  It places particular emphasis on four factors:  Roosevelt’s compelling vision for national greatness, political skill, faith in the people and the US system, and emphasis on presidential leadership  This excellent study on TR’s political finesse and his efforts to shape U.S. foreign policy is scholarly, appealing to a wide audience, and a significant contribution to the historiography of Theodore Roosevelt.

The award was presented at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. during the annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association on Saturday, October 24, 2020.

2019

In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military
Matthew Oyos, Author
University of Nebraska Press, Publisher

Matthew Oyos is a professor of history at Radford University. He has published articles on Theodore Roosevelt in the Journal of Military History, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era.

He examines the evolution of Roosevelt’s ideas about military force in the age of industry and explores his drive to promote new institutions of command: technological innovations, militia reform, and international military missions. Oyos places these developments into broader themes of Progressive Era reform, civil-military tensions, and Roosevelt’s ideas of national cultural vitality and civic duty.  In Command focuses on Roosevelt’s career-long commitment to transforming the military institutions of the United States. Roosevelt’s promotion of innovative military technologies, his desire to inject the officer corps with fresh vigor, and his role in building new institutions for command changed the American military landscape. His attempt to modernize the military while struggling with the changing nature of warfare during his time resonates with and provides unique insight into the challenges presented by today’s rapidly changing strategic environment.

The award was presented at the Mansion at Glen Cove in Glen Cove, NY during the annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association.

2018

Theodore Roosevelt’s Ghost, The History and Memory of an American Icon
Michael Patrick Cullinane, Author
LSU Press, Publisher

Michael Patrick Cullinane is a reader in modern U.S. history at Roehampton University, London, and the author of Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism, 1898-1909, and coauthor of The Open Door Era: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century.

A comprehensive examination of Roosevelt’s legacy, Michael Patrick Cullinane explores the frequent refashioning of this American icon in popular memory.  This wide-ranging study reveals how successive generations shaped the public memory of Roosevelt through their depictions of him in memorials, political invocations, art, architecture, historical scholarship, literature, and popular culture. Cullinane emphasizes the historical contexts of public memory, exploring the means by which different communities worked to construct specific representations of Roosevelt, often adapting his legacy to suit the changing needs of the present. 

The award was presented at the Harvard Club in New York, NY during the annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association.

2017

The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, A Lifetime of Exploration, and the Triumph of American Natural History

Darrin Lunde, Author
Crown Publishing Group, Publisher

Darrin Lunde is a Supervisory Museum Specialist in the Division of Mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.  Previously, he worked at the American Museum History, and he has led field expeditions throughout the world, collecting specimens in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

In The Naturalist: Theodore Roosevelt, A Lifetime of Exploration, and the Triumph of the American Natural History, he shows how from his earliest days Roosevelt actively modeled himself in the proud tradition of museum naturalists - the men who pioneered a key branch of American biology through their desire to collect animal specimens and develop a taxonomy of the natural world. The influence these men would have on Roosevelt would shape not just his personality but his career, informing his work as a politician and statesman and ultimately affecting generations of Americans' relationships to this country's wilderness.  Lunde constructs a brilliantly researched, singularly insightful history that reveals the roots of Roosevelt's enduring naturalist legacy through the group of little-known men whose work and lives defined his own.

The award was presented at the Harvard Club in New York, NY during the annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association.