No American president has been more enthusiastic in appreciating the
wilderness and in conserving our nation's natural treasures than
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919). And no other president wrote more about
nature and his explorations of it than T. R., in scattered books, such
as African Wilderness, and in his countless letters, including those
collected in The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt). Roosevelt the
Explorer, by historian and Roosevelt biographer H. Paul Jeffers, is the
only book to offer a comprehensive, lifelong chronicle of the consummate
adventurer's exploits and expeditions, which compelled him to traverse
some of our planet's most difficult terrains. Within these lively pages,
Roosevelt collects more than a hundred bird specimens in Egypt at age
fourteen; hunts grizzlies and other game in the wilds of the Dakota
territory; founds the Boon and Crockett Club, the nation's first
conservation group; and inspires the first Teddy Bear. Jeffers describes
T. R.'s efforts as president, against fierce opposition, to establish an
unprecedented system of national parks and to ensure the safety of
America's vast federal forests and wetlands from rampant development. In
the words of Roosevelt himself, the adventures unfold T. R.'s 1909-1910,
eleven-month, Smithsonian-inspired safari across Africa, from Mombasa on
the Indian Ocean to Khartoum in Egypt, which followed his two terms as
president; and his 1913-1914 danger-drenched expedition to map South
America's 950-mile River of Doubt (a previously unexplored tributary to
the Amazon River later renamed Rio Roosevelt in his honor). During the
trip, one man drowned, another was murdered, and the culprit went
insane, fleeing into the jungle. Roosevelt was lucky to escape alive,
nearly drowning and plagued by jungle fever, dysentery, an ulcerated
leg, blood poisoning, and malaria. Illustrated with rare cartoons and
photos, and filled with hairbreadth escapes, exotic animals and locales,
and unparalleled excitement, Roosevelt the Explorer brings to life T.
R.'s thrilling and often controversial exploits as no other book has
done since the twenty-sixth president took his pen in hand over eighty
years ago.
