About the Author

Michael R. Canfield is the editor of Field Notes on Science and Nature, as well as the dean at Eliot House and a lecturer on organismic and evolutionary biology, both at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, MA.

Reviews

"A revelation for readers who might have considered Roosevelt's jaunts as largely diversionary or therapeutic, this nuanced work emphasizes an adventurer's scientific contributions and his enduring and energizing interplay with nature."
-- "Library Journal"

"Canfield argues that Roosevelt's obsession with the natural world was genuine, serious and scholarly."
-- "Literary Review"

"Canfield, a Harvard academic and editor of Field Notes on Science and Nature, mines Theodore Roosevelt's writings to provide a well-written and engaging perspective on the 26th U.S. president. Canfield's focus is on Roosevelt's hunting and collecting expeditions, but he also provides important details of Roosevelt's personal life, contextualizing his passion for hunting and exploring."
-- "Publishers Weekly"

"In Theodore Roosevelt in the Field Michael R. Canfield, a biologist who teaches at Harvard University, examines the tensions between hunters and naturalists. Roosevelt moved in both worlds, but not always easily. Conservationist John Muir once asked him: 'When are you going to get beyond the boyishness of killing things?' Yet the question remains, Canfield writes: 'Would Roosevelt have been able to effect such a massive amount of conservation -- winning the support of so many diverse constituencies -- had he not been a hunter, regardless of whether or not his hunting was always optimal?'''
-- "Boston Globe"

"In Theodore Roosevelt in the Field, Canfield draws on TR's notebooks, diaries, and letters to explore his semi-domesticated subject's exploits in the out-of-doors. . . . As Canfield and others have noted, Roosevelt's genius lay in his integration of so many disparate traits into a unique, unified personality. And if he had been more thoroughly domesticated, he would not have been Roosevelt."
-- "Wall Street Journal"

"This work promises to be a different type of biography of Theodore Roosevelt, highlighting the love of nature he maintained his entire life. Canfield portrays Roosevelt as an accomplished scientist working in the field, more at home in the natural habitats he explored than on the battlefield or in the political arena. . . . Many fine illustrations from Roosevelt's diaries and notebooks make this work rewarding for historians and general readers. Recommended."
-- "Choice"

"Finally, a biography that convincingly captures the seemingly disparate and sometimes contradictory dimensions of Theodore Roosevelt's lifelong engagement with the natural world. Theodore Roosevelt in the Field does a wonderful job of showing how this larger-than-life leader's abiding passion to experience nature directly found expression as a naturalist, big game hunter, specimen collector, conservationist, writer, explorer, and outdoor adventurer."--Mark V. Barrow, Jr., author of Nature's Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology