The Wilderness Warrior

Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America

By: Douglas Brinkley

Narrated by: Dennis Holland

Length: 40 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

In this groundbreaking epic biography, Douglas Brinkley draws on never-before-published materials to examine the life and achievements of our "naturalist president."

By setting aside more than 230 million acres of wild America for posterity between 1901 and 1909, Theodore Roosevelt made conservation a universal endeavor. This crusade for the American wilderness was perhaps the greatest U.S. presidential initiative between the Civil War and World War I. Roosevelt's most important legacies led to the creation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and passage of the Antiquities Act in 1906. His executive orders saved such treasures as Devils Tower, the Grand Canyon, and the Petrified Forest.

Tracing the role that nature played in Roosevelt's storied career, Brinkley brilliantly analyzes the influence that the works of John James Audubon and Charles Darwin had on the young man who would become our 26th president. With descriptive flair, the author illuminates Roosevelt's bird watching in the Adirondacks, wildlife obsession in Yellowstone, hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains, ranching in the Dakota Territory, hunting in the Big Horn Mountains, and outdoor romps through Idaho and Wyoming. He also profiles Roosevelt's incredible circle of naturalist friends, including the Catskills poet John Burroughs, Boone and Crockett Club cofounder George Bird Grinnell, forestry zealot Gifford Pinchot, buffalo breeder William Hornaday, Sierra Club founder John Muir, U.S. Biological Survey wizard C. Hart Merriam, Oregon Audubon Society founder William L. Finley, and pelican protector Paul Kroegel, among many others. He brings to life hilarious anecdotes of wild-pig hunting in Texas and badger saving in Kansas, wolf catching in Oklahoma and grouse flushing in Iowa. Even the story of the teddy bear gets its definitive treatment.

Destined to become a classic, this extraordinary and timeless biography offers a penetrating and colorful look at Roosevelt's naturalist achie...

©2009 Douglas Brinkley (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

3 Stars

My Rating Scale
5 Stars
Exceptional. This is the very best in writing and narration. I will listen to this book more than once and eagerly recommend it to family and friends. This book left me wanting more from the same author and narrator.
4 Stars
Very Good. I found it entertaining and engaging. It's worth the Audible membership price I paid. Based on this book I would purchase others from the same author.
3 Stars
This book has merit but some combination of elements (writing style, narration or length) made finishing it a challenge for me.
2 Stars
I found this book to be either poorly written or narrated. I couldn't finish it.
1 Star
The audio quality or narration is so poor the content of this book couldn't be understood.

A Must Read for Theodore

This incredible, *detailed* dive into Theodore Roosevelt's life will answer any question and paint every inch of the portrait of this great man's life. It's informative, educational, surprisingly funny, and endlessly captivating. READ it. You won't regret it.

Must read for hunters, and all citizens

This is incredibly well written and researched. All hunters and sportsmen should read this book and champion TR’s conservation values and mission.

Incredible book that deserves better narration

The only thing keeping this book from being 5 Stars is the narration. It was very slow and monotone, but we much improved when played at 1.35x speed.

The book itself was very informative and focused. I learned A LOT. Not just about Roosevelt, but the National Parks, the end of the western frontier, and the conservationist movement of the early 20th Century.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Roosevelt, the Wild West, the Natural World, or Turn-of-the-century America.

Conservation King

This is a long and winding listen but if you’re a fan of TR, the conservation movement, and public lands it is a detailed history of how it all came to be.

Interesting read!

Well written and well spoken. This book was incredibly informative about the life of TR.

Great Story, Great President

I learned a lot about this president that I had not known and think of him everyday for his commitment to nature and establishing and preserving our National Parks.

I DID keep listening

This must be a good book, since in spite of its substantive as well as annoying flaws, I finished it. The errors of fact (wrong birth date for Lincoln, for example) are well documented in other reviews. Where the print version apparently suffers from typos, the audible version suffers from mispronounciations. Canyon de CheLLY NOT! It's Canyon de Shay. Mt. DESSERT Island, not Mt. Desert. This lack of fact-checking and simple attention to detail certainly causes concern about the validity of the rest of the book. What about errors the reader/listener doesn't recognize? Too bad that the scholarship and/or editing casts doubt on the, well, validity, of the book. That being said, I did finish it.

Conservationist and Outdoorsman’s Perfect Listen

This book was extremely interesting and was very educational. If you are interested in TR, National Parks or Forest, hunting, or biology this book is for you hands down. It does not drag on like some have said. Listened to the whole book over a three day period while working and left inspired by the life of the bull moose.

dull and wordy

Bought it because of national parks and TR.
Felt like an overlong Publish or Perish, over 40 hours, or nearly 1000 pages, and drily academic in tone. Not well done, I was extremely disappointed.
The narrator was adequate.