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One of the melancholy pleasures of this novel is the contrast it continually presents to our current president, another bigger-than-life man of wealth and privilege but otherwise a grim opposite of the brave warrior, the curious scholar, the principled legislator. That contrast is never more striking than in the novel’s central adventure: Roosevelt’s audacious decision to leave his position as assistant secretary of the Navy and help lead a band of volunteers — the Rough Riders — to Cuba during the Spanish-American War. (Asthma? Poor eyesight? Bone spurs? Pshaw — there is no stopping this man!)