＊ 总统山上的四位总统雕像之一
＊ 美国史上就任年龄最年轻的总统—42岁
老罗斯福大概是有史以来最讨厌坐在办公桌前的总统了。我们对他的印象不是骑在马背上、站在悬崖边，不然就是整装准备前往野外。老罗斯福不只是一位冒险家─他也是一位自然学家与保护自然的实践者。他从很小就热爱野外的世界，他认为光观察是不够的，还要身处野外才够。作者Michael R. Canfield在《野外的老罗斯福》一书中写道，老罗斯福医生有许多身分，自然学家、猎人、作家、军人、自然保护主义者，他热衷科学与自然，他坚守“勤奋的生活”信念，这些种种都造就了他治理美国的方式。
书中有大量的罗斯福总统的田野笔记、日记、信件，让读者身如其境，与老罗斯福总统一起冒险。 从老罗斯福儿时的蚂蚁观察笔记到青少年时期的鸟类观察笔记，就可以看出他的求知欲与对野外的热情是一致的。我们随后来到荒地，老罗斯福在妻子与母亲过世后，开始了狂野的西部放牧生活。最后，作者带着我们来到非洲与南美，了解老罗斯福卸任后的旅游与写作生活。我们透过这本书了解到，老罗斯福的矛盾身分（猎人vs. 自然保护者）其实是想要直接了解及体验周遭的环境。
我们和自然之间的关系愈来愈薄弱，《野外的老罗斯福》让我们有机会和这位史上最勇敢最引人入胜的传奇人物，发掘沉浸在自然里的乐趣。
好评
“While other authors have explored Theodore Roosevelt’s time in the Badlands or his love of nature, Canfield is the first to highlight a distinct pattern in Roosevelt’s life. Roosevelt did not just experience the outdoors in an ad hoc manner, flitting to and from dilettantish forays in the American West, Africa, or the Amazon. Instead, Roosevelt engaged with the outdoors with his entire being, simultaneously as a natural scientist, intellectual, and writer. For every formative moment Roosevelt spent in politics, Canfield rightly points out that there existed an equally formative moment spent ‘in the field.’”
(Edward P. Kohn, author of Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt)
“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)
“Canfield is the perfect writer for this subject, and what a subject it is. This is Theodore Roosevelt at his most electric and alive—the great naturalist in the field, which was far more his natural habitat even than the battlefield or the political arena. With his masterful writing and carefully researched details, Canfield reveals Roosevelt not just as we remember him, but as he truly was: vibrant, brilliant, and endlessly fascinating.”
(Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey)
“This amazingly interesting book documents an amazingly interesting man. Not only a statesman and soldier, the ‘cowboy of the Dakotas,’ and a larger-than-life politician, Theodore Roosevelt was also an endlessly energetic explorer, naturalist, and conservationist. Roosevelt’s wildlife adventures and field trips take the foreground here, including major expeditions in Amazonia and Africa, and the foundation of the American National Park system. Canfield gives us a real treat in bringing these encounters with the natural world together in a single account that helps to explain Roosevelt’s passion for the wilderness and deep understanding of the wide variety of American landscapes and wildlife. Vividly written and historically accurate, this is an ideal book for anyone interested in natural history.”
(Janet Browne, author of Charles Darwin: A Biography)
关于作者
Michael R. Canfield是Field Notes on Science and Nature的编辑，也是哈佛Eliot House的院长及生物与进化生物学的讲师。他目前住在麻州的剑桥。
