Teddy Roosevelt's America
Teddy Roosevelt was one of perhaps five or six truly transformative presidents in American history. A cultivated, scholarly aristocrat, Roosevelt entered politics during the nation’s “gilded age,” much to the dismay of his peers who regarded government as a tawdry affair dominated by saloon-keepers and greedy commercial types. In the course of his thirty years in public service, he resolved to restore the “heroic, manly virtues” and a sense of sublime destiny to American life. This course will examine the career of this remarkable — if often abrasive and authoritarian — American statesman.
Faculty Bio
Mick Chantler has been a student of American history for more than 50 years. His primary areas of interest include the Founding Era, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the history of the South. He has been teaching at OLLI @Berkeley for the past decade.
This is an Encore Course
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Member Praise for "Teddy Roosevelt's America"
Great presentation and discussion, chock full of interesting facts, cartoons, and observations about the culture and politics of Teddy's time. The pace was perfect.
I used to shy away from courses about areas of US history that I'd studied in college but eventually realized that no matter how much I might know about something, Mick sees it in a new a clearer light and his brilliance really makes any subject worth while ... I'm familiar with the building blocks of Roosevelt's life, but it took Mick to help me see "the forest for the trees," the many contradictions in his life and how he could be both a liberal and a conservative, a conservationist and a slaughterer of animals, a progressive and a reactionary.
Well-organized, chock full of TR information— his strengths, foibles, personality, temperment, and politics. Excellent mix of TR’s quotes mixed with viewpoints of supporters, opponents, and other people of the period. Well paced, always engaging lectures.
Faculty Q&A
- Read an interview with Mick Chantler from our archive