Roosevelts: An Intimate History

A frail, asthmatic young Theodore Roosevelt transforms himself into a vigorous champion of the strenuous life, loses one great love and finds another, leads men into battle and then rises like a rocket to become the youngest president in American history at 42.

Murder brings Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency, but in the seven years that follow, he transforms the office and makes himself perhaps the best-loved of all the men who ever lived in the White House - battling corporate greed and building the Panama Canal, preserving American wilderness, carrying the message of American might around the world.

Theodore Roosevelt leads a Progressive crusade that splits his own party, undertakes a deadly expedition into the South American jungle, campaigns for American entry into World War I - and pays a terrible personal price.

Franklin Roosevelt runs for vice president in 1920 and seems assured of a still brighter future until polio devastates him the following summer.

FDR brings the same optimism and energy to the White House that his cousin Theodore displayed.

FDR shatters the third-term tradition, struggles to prepare a reluctant country to enter World War II and, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, helps set the course toward Allied victory.

Frail and failing but determined to see the war through to victory, FDR wins re-election and begins planning for a peaceful postwar world, but a cerebral hemorrhage kills him at 63.