Sometimes when I want to learn about a particular historical era, I look for a biography of someone representative of the time. So I just finished the book, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer by Nancy C. Unger. The book is over 20 years old and I’m sure there have been more recent books and previous books on the man, but this one happened to be in my local library, so I started here.
Robert La Follette was a politician from Wisconsin who, along with Teddy Roosevelt, epitomizes the Progressive Reform movement in the early twentieth century. He and Roosevelt fought for many of the same things, but both had huge egos and clashed more than they cooperated.
This biography is a balanced portrait of a man with important, big ideas, but who was, at times, his own worst enemy. He was convinced of his own righteousness and blind to his own flaws. He was prone to exaggeration and refused to compromise. He comes across as truly wanting to do the right thing for “the people,” but not a man I would personally like.
The book does do a good job of explaining many of the issues of the day. It’s disturbing how many of these same issues keep cropping up and never seem to be solved.
While biographies of politicians are definitely not my usual reading choice, this was worth the read.
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