This is a study of the changing relationship between two of the most important political figures of the first decades of the twentieth century. Each served as president, and as such influenced the domestic as well as the diplomatic policies of the national government. Their impact on public policy was not limited to their presidential years, however. Out of office after 1909, Roosevelt"s bolt of the Republican party guaranteed the election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912. As an elder statesman Taft became one of the strongest advocates for American participation in the League of Nations. Focused on public lives, the book becomes a study in American domestic and diplomatic affairs, and contributes, perhaps, to the "great man" theory of history. David H. Burton is an independent scholar.