New York state assemblyman, assistant secretary of the Navy, New York City police commissioner, governor of New York, vice president and, at forty-two, the youngest president ever—in his own words, Theodore Roosevelt “rose like a rocket.” He was also a cowboy, a soldier, a historian, an intrepid explorer, and an unsurpassed environmentalist, all in all, perhaps the most accomplished chief executive in our nation’s history. Roosevelt built the Panama Canal and engaged the country in world affairs, putting a temporary end to American isolationism. And he won the Nobel Peace Prize—the only sitting president so honored. In Lion in the White House, historian Aida Donald masterfully chronicles the life of this first modern president.

AIDA DONALD, a former Fulbright Fellow at Oxford University, holds a Ph.D. in American history and has taught at Columbia University. She is a former editor-in-chief of Harvard University Press and worked as a publisher at Hill and Wang and Johns Hopkins University Press. She lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.