“Taking Roosevelt seriously as a thinker, Milkis covers his protagonist’s post-presidential career with a thoroughness unmatched by previous biographers.”—Alonzo Hamby in the Claremont Review
“A must-read for students of the Progressive Era as well as the presidency. Milkis has set a standard for understanding TR and progressive reform that will ensure his book will be read for years to come.”—Journal of American History
“Clearly written and cogently argued, this book offers one of the most convincing cases for considering the Progressive Era to be a genuine age of transformation.”—Political Science Quarterly
“Filled with valuable insights and engaging vignettes. An enjoyable must-read for scholars of American political development.”—Choice
“Lively, timely, accessible, profound, this is a terrific book on the historic election of 1912 and, indeed, on the ideas which inspired the transformation of the American presidency in the twentieth century.”—Stephen Skowronek, author of The Politics Presidents Make
“Milkis shows better than anyone else how this election marked a profound and permanent departure in American politics.”—John Milton Cooper, author of The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt
“A brilliant book from one of America’s foremost social thinkers. Exciting, wise, elegant, and altogether pathbreaking.”—James A. Morone, author of The Democratic Wish and the Heart of Power
“This work is a major reinterpretation that portrays the election of 1912 as one of the formative events of American political history. It is must reading for students of electoral and policy history.”—David R. Mayhew, author of Divided We Govern
“This book is political and institutional history at its narrative and analytic best. Milkis’s foreshadowing of the New Deal and of the possible consequences of the election of 2008 for the Democratic Party shows a master drawing lessons from the history he writes.”—Nancy L. Rosenblum, author of On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship
“A masterful account of a pivotal moment in American politics. Milkis persuasively shows how the Progressive conundrum—how to reconcile the ideals of democracy with the goals of effective government—took root and how it continues to reverberate throughout our public life today.”—Margaret Weir, editor of The Social Divide: Political Parties and the Future of Activist Government
