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A review by jeremyanderberg
The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century by Clay Risen
4.0
There’s always more to be written about Theodore Roosevelt. And this one was especially fun for me to read; my great-great-grandfather, Fred Bugbee, was a Rough Rider with Roosevelt and was in fact hit by a glancing shot to the head from a Spanish rifle.
It bled a lot, but wasn’t enough for Bugbee to seek medical attention. Roosevelt ordered him to the rear, to which Bugbee responded: “Go to hell.” That’s my heritage. Amazing.
So of course this was a book that I'd be drawn to. Though Bugbee was not mentioned in the book, The Crowded Hour provided a superb look at the realities of the Rough Riders — that ragtag group of volunteer soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War.
It goes well beyond just that regiment's story though. Clay lays out the context of the war: how it came to be, why America got involved, and perhaps most interestingly, how it set the stage for future US involvement in international conflicts. Before this war, the US had not fought on another people's behalf; after this war, our soldiers did so in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and numerous other minor conflicts.
The writing was a hair slow, to be honest, but I was fully gripped by both the broader scope of the conflict and the day-to-day experiences of Teddy Roosevelt's now-famous band of fighters. The story reminded me of Candace Millard's Hero of the Empire, which was about Winston Churchill's wartime experience as a young man. This follows a similar trajectory, showing how those few weeks in Cuba had an outsized impact on the rest of Roosevelt's life and philosophy.
Ultimately, I'm incredibly glad that I was able to learn about my great-great-grandfather's real-life experience in Cuba.
It bled a lot, but wasn’t enough for Bugbee to seek medical attention. Roosevelt ordered him to the rear, to which Bugbee responded: “Go to hell.” That’s my heritage. Amazing.
So of course this was a book that I'd be drawn to. Though Bugbee was not mentioned in the book, The Crowded Hour provided a superb look at the realities of the Rough Riders — that ragtag group of volunteer soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War.
It goes well beyond just that regiment's story though. Clay lays out the context of the war: how it came to be, why America got involved, and perhaps most interestingly, how it set the stage for future US involvement in international conflicts. Before this war, the US had not fought on another people's behalf; after this war, our soldiers did so in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and numerous other minor conflicts.
The writing was a hair slow, to be honest, but I was fully gripped by both the broader scope of the conflict and the day-to-day experiences of Teddy Roosevelt's now-famous band of fighters. The story reminded me of Candace Millard's Hero of the Empire, which was about Winston Churchill's wartime experience as a young man. This follows a similar trajectory, showing how those few weeks in Cuba had an outsized impact on the rest of Roosevelt's life and philosophy.
Ultimately, I'm incredibly glad that I was able to learn about my great-great-grandfather's real-life experience in Cuba.