Word: jujitsu
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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Earnestness grows tiresome fast, however, and it is a strength of both the biographer and his subject that it is leavened with snapshots of Roosevelt’s extraordinary energy and curiosity. At various points in the narrative we are informed that Roosevelt was studying jujitsu, conducting ornithological surveys, reading unreal amounts of literature and nonfiction, steering submarines, publishing papers on natural history, setting the Guiness record for shaking hands and killing bears—all while in office. When he invited foreign emissaries for weekend jaunts, he advised them to wear clothes they didn’t care about...
Earnestness grows tiresome fast, however, and it is a strength of both the biographer and his subject that it is leavened with snapshots of Roosevelt’s extraordinary energy and curiosity. At various points in the narrative we are informed that Roosevelt was studying jujitsu, conducting ornithological surveys, reading unreal amounts of literature and nonfiction, steering submarines, publishing papers on natural history, setting the Guiness record for shaking hands and killing bears—all while in office. When he invited foreign emissaries for weekend jaunts, he advised them to wear clothes they didn’t care about...
Morris also has in Roosevelt, as he did not have in Reagan, a first-rate central character, whose style and substance foreshadowed the presidencies that would follow. His athletic vigor prefigured John F. Kennedy's. If anything, Roosevelt's White House jujitsu lessons make J.F.K.'s touch football look borderline effete. ("Muscular Christianity without the Christianity" is how somebody once described Teddy's manner.) His use of federal power against the massive industrial monopolies of his day opened the way to the decisive expansion of Washington under his younger relative, F.D.R. Though he came from old money, his inexhaustible democratic...