At one point, Millard writes of a rubber tapper in the remote jungle who comes across the starving expedition, and of his "…awe when he learned that the ragged and stricken man he saw lying in the roughest sort of dugout canoe had once been the president of the United States."
Roosevelt didn't care what people thought. "…If it is necessary for me to leave my bones in South America, I am quite ready to do so," he wrote a friend. TR was a real-life "Indiana Jones" in this trek, with the help of many companions, whom Millard also ably profiles. (The Brazilian explorer Candido Rondon is particularly vividly drawn, a stoic, proud man who was TR's opposite in many ways, yet who worked with him to blaze the path on the river.) The explorers lost multiple canoes on rapids, and endured endless cross-country portaging of their gear, near-starvation and bouts with disease. There's even a murder to keep things lively.
Millard tells her story with tremendous detail (she even interviewed members of the tribes the party contacted 90 years ago), only occasionally getting a bit too detailed about things like South American botany and ecology. She avoids giving us just another TR biography, setting the stage for Roosevelt's journey and spending most of the book retelling the harrowing trip in fine detail.
The journey very nearly killed Roosevelt, who contemplated suicide at one point, wracked with disease and not wanting to burden the rest of the party. But he persevered, as he always did. It was Roosevelt's last, great adventure – and as Millard reveals, the malaria and infections he incurred probably helped lead to his early death at age 60 just five years later. The "River of Doubt" was renamed "Rio Roosevelt."
Looking at the smaller-than-life characters we seem to get for President these days, River of Doubt serves as a reminder of a time when the man was larger than the office he held. It's an excellent addition to the field of Roosevelt biography.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - Ted Timmis
I am half way throught the audio version of this book. I agree with the reviewer that the book is excellent and the audio version is superb. The reviewer made one comment, however,about TR's hefty machismo which leaves me scratching my head. I think this comment regarding TR completely misses the point and says more perhaps about the reviewer.
TR was a natural born leader who was tough, courageous and adventuresome; in short, he was the real deal. One great example of his courage was when he stood before an audience of skeptical dignitaries in Chile and gave an impassioned defense of the Panama Canal which brought them to their feet in praise.
He was also a raconteur and a thinking man with a hunger for knowledge and a joy for life. During the journey, he treated the members of his party, and in particular, the comraderos(?), with a great deal of respect and admiration. If these attributes define a man as machismo, then more men should strive to be that way.