A look into the relationship between Teddy Roosevelt and King Edward the 7th. A breezy read which convincingly argues that these two men worked together to set the agenda for democracy in western Europe and the north Atlantic before the great war. ( )

In this relatively modest book, "The King and the Cowboy", David Fromkin sets out to make the point that Theodore Roosevelt and England's King Edward VII developed a secret partnership which redefined the alliances of the major European powers just prior to World War I. There appears to be some merit to that claim, but the details of the working relationship appear far from conspiratorial.

On the other hand, one part I appreciated in the book was the biographical sketches of the royal families of the 19th Century. European royalty were closely related at the time, in ways I often overlook. Fromkin provides a good description of the relationship of the royals of the time, including England's Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales and future Kind Edward VII, Wilhelm II, Nicholas II, etc., along with a brief bio of Theodore Roosevelt. Fromkin also described the changing alliances of the time, and the reasons and power struggles behind the changing alliances, all important considerations in understanding the background of pre-WWI Europe. ( )

Entertaining, and easily digested because it treats only one small portion of the life of two large personalities. Gives some insight into both Teddy and the Prince. ( )

International Relations expert and Historian David Fromkin delivers a slim, elegant little book which puts forward the claim that there was a special relationship between Theodore Roosevelt (the Cowboy) and Edward VII (the King) of England which changed the course of history by creating a special relationship between Britain and the USA which still stands today and which drew the battle lines in World War One by blocking the ambitions of Kaiser Wilhelm II at the Algeciras during the First Moroccan Crisis in 1906. Furthermore he uses this claim to put forward the idea that individual personalities are often just as if not more important than impersonal forces (industrialisation, nationalism, economic structures etc.) in determining the course of history.

Alas in singularly failing to prove the first claim, Fromkin undermines the second as well. The first 4/5s of the book provide us with short biographies of Edward, Theodore and Wilhelm, which are interesting to read (given that they are sprinkled with scandalous tidbits about the peccadillos of the European monarchs in particular) but don't seem to really fully support the thesis. We are told Edward (who had nothing to do with foreign policy directly) exerted an indirect influence through his patronage of pro-French friends in the foreign office. The evidence for this, and its impact is never provided. The special relationship between Roosevelt and Edward amounts to one telegram of congratulations after the conference is over. The conference, which one would expect to be described in depth is passed over in only a couple of pages. In short, Fromkin's thesis does not hold up. At best he shows how Edward VI preferred an Anglo-French alliance rather than the Anglo-German one his parents had wanted and that this preference may have filtered into official British thinking.

A final note concerns odd little irregularities with facts and some (at least to me) debatable interpretations of historical records. Charles I of England was not a Catholic. The Hanoverian dynasty came after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, not the execution of Charles, etc. ( )