Theodore Roosevelt: Global American
May 24-26
Roosevelt Institute for American Studies
Middelburg, The Netherlands
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most internationally oriented presidents in U.S. history. He travelled extensively, enjoyed a large network of friends abroad, and maintained a close familiarity with global developments. International reform projects, the state of conservation and resource development, and the potential for an international security architecture ranged highly among his interests.
But while Roosevelt was keenly aware of global developments and the international context in which the United States operated, he was also an ardent nationalist and imperialist. He rejected cosmopolitanism as ‘unpatriotic’ and racialized understandings of international relations shaped his global outlooks. For TR, the ‘Global’ served both as stage for the globalization of U.S. interests and simultaneously as inspiration for progressive political, social, economic, and environmental reforms.