Wednesday, June 17, 2015

The King and the Cowboy

Author: David Fromkin
Stars: 1
Review by: MandyApgar

This was bad. Painfully, paint drying bad. The overwhelming problem is a series of glaring errors / inaccuracies that the writer, granted his background, should have avoided. Plus it is just so infernally dull. It was supposed to be about the political partnership of Theodore Roosevelt and Edward VII of England. Supposed to. About half of the book is a biography of Edward and his mother Victoria with the substance said being of little value to the subject and possessing several errors (the incorrect attribution of the "We are not amused" quote for example - a Pulitzer Prize nominee should be able to properly quote the most famous line of a monarch). After that is a much briefer account of TR's early life and career, loaded with much of the same errors including a somewhat bias to make him look uncaring to his family. I would be insulted if I was a Roosevelt and read this. Once the two men get together there are very few pages left indeed and the book's conclusion is a rather slapdash "yeah, they met and this happened....." trailing off. Plus the cover makes them look like, to paraphrase TR's famously acerbic daughter Alice, "little men on the wedding cake."
 

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