S1 E9: Theodore Roosevelt
The Past, the Promise, the Presidency
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Has the History of President Roosevelt Changed?
In the first 10 years after Roosevelt dies, hagiographies abound. But in 1931 a historian called Henry Pringle writes the first revisionist biography and it's a major success. He depicts him as an adolescent a juvenile delinquent to hasty to egotistical loud brash uncouth - that image sticks for at least a generation until the 1950s. Then you move into the 50s and you see a revival of Roosevelt which coincides very much with the Cold War,. And also what happens in those years is that we get more resources. We see a re revisionism of Roosevelt from the 50s onwards. In the 90s he has become a much more bipartisan figure since the 90s.
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