The New York Times Book Review – Bill Keller
"There are but a handful of times in the history of our country," Goodwin writes in her introduction, "when there occurs a transformation so remarkable that a molt seems to take place, and an altered country begins to emerge." The years covered in this book are such a time. It makes a pretty grand story…Goodwin directs her characters with precision and affection, and the story comes together like a well-wrought novel…Roosevelt and Taft and their wives and siblings and parents and children all wrote each other copious, loving and often eloquent reports. Goodwin seems to have read them all, along with every newspaper and magazine published during those years…and used them to put political intrigues and moral dilemmas and daily lives into rich and elegant language. Imagine The West Wing scripted by Henry James.