LEAVE IT AS IT IS

An admiring study of Theodore Roosevelt and his attachment to the natural world.

“All you have to do is go back and read the man’s sentences,” writes environmental-literature writer and professor Gessner. “Not the jingoistic, chest-beating, America-first rants or the bloody descriptions of killing things. But the words in between.” Though often given to sentences that have a faux Hemingway swagger to them, Gessner proves the point by examining Roosevelt’s evolving appreciation of nature and his recognition that other orders of existence besides the human had claims to the world. Some of that appreciation came through the tutelage of early nature writers and explorers such as John Burroughs and John Muir. Much, though, was born of Roosevelt’s dedication to improving his already capacious mind but once feeble body by scaling the rocks of Yosemite, hiking into the Grand Canyon, and other tests. Roosevelt repaid the favor by placing great tracts of public domain land in service as wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, and the like. Gessner mixes solid research with on-the-ground explorations that sometimes get a little goofy, as when, on a trip to Yosemite of his own, he allows his accompanying nephew a “small, safe, legal, uncle-supervised” nibble on a marijuana cookie. His travels often lead, though, to contested places such as the embattled Bears Ears National Monument, for which he mounts an eloquent appeal to return land that the Trump administration has delisted to the public domain. Gessner sometimes wanders down paths of speculation that don’t lead anywhere fruitful (“What would he make of the warming climate and dying species and what we have done with the wilderness he left us?”), and he doesn’t break much new ground. Still, it’s useful to be reminded of a president who appreciates the natural world and puts government to work doing good things.

Fans of Teddy the outdoor enthusiast will appreciate Gessner’s account.