Page "Theodore Roosevelt" Paragraph 17

While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the nascent US Navy in the War of 1812, largely completing two chapters of a book he would publish after graduation.

Helped in part by his two uncles, he did his own research using original source materials and official US Navy records.

Roosevelt's carefully researched book was comparable to modern doctoral dissertations, complete with drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between American and British forces, and analyses of the differences between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level.

Published after Roosevelt's graduation from college, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style.

This book established Roosevelt's reputation as a serious historian.

One modern naval historian wrote: " Roosevelt ’ s study of the War of 1812 influenced all subsequent scholarship on the naval aspects of the War of 1812 and continues to be reprinted.

More than a classic, it remains, after 120 years, a standard study of the war.