First published 2013
Doris Kearns Goodwin chronicles the Progressive Era through the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Their deep friendship strengthens both men during the reform movement's early years. Roosevelt pushes the federal government to abandon its hands-off approach toward wealthy industrialists and corrupt officials. Meanwhile, investigative journalists at McClure's magazine, including Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White, expose corporate abuse and political corruption under publisher S. S. McClure's leadership. The press campaigns fuel Roosevelt's reform agenda. But in 1912, Roosevelt and Taft clash in a vicious battle for the Republican presidential nomination. Their fight tears apart families and friendships while weakening the party's progressive faction. The split allows Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency. Goodwin draws on extensive correspondence between Roosevelt and Taft, diaries kept by their wives Edith Roosevelt and Nellie Taft, and letters from Captain Archie Butt, who served both presidents. The book examines how leadership during this period of activism brought America closer to its founding principles.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, political-science, non-fiction, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, friendship
Setting: America
Period: Progressive Era
910 pages · Hardcover · Simon and Schuster