by Paul Baicich and Wayne Peterson
October 2020

A review of Douglas Brinkley’s Rightful Heritage – Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America (Harper, 2016)

If you are like some of us, you may have your “must-read-next” pile of books on your desk, on your living room coffee table, or your bedside nightstand. The heap never seems to go away, and very often the larger and more daunting volumes get passed over for “a better time.”

Well, that “better time” has been with us for a few months, and the pile of books may be getting smaller. It could be time to conquer one of those big books you’ve bypassed for a few years. One such hefty volume may have been Douglas Brinkley’s 744-page Rightful Heritage – Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America (Harper, 2016). And with time on your hands, that four-year-old book deserves serious consideration.

The book doesn’t start with FDR as New York Governor or as President; it starts with his early years in the Hudson River Valley and his personal explorations.

Douglas Brinkley does a masterful and detailed job in tracing FDR’s love of the land and love of nature that began during those early years—bird watching, studying natural history, and dabbling in taxidermy. Early on, FDR emulated his distant cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, with an interest in conservation, and he honed real skills in forestry and a love for the sea (including fishing) for the rest of his life.

You can’t understand his wildlife-and-land conservation leadership as President unless you appreciate his hands-on interests in these subjects during his early years. You can better comprehend his Presidential concern over the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Parks, building a National Wildlife Refuge “system,” assisting the building of state parks across the country, and his soil-conservation emphasis when you appreciate his bird-obsessed youth and his self-identification as a forester.

Not only do birds fly in and out of Brinkley’s narrative (with a few mistakes that only a few readers would likely catch), but the cast of characters with bird-and-conservation credentials also flow in and out of the narrative—and the White House—with equal ease. Some familiar conservation personalities include Frank Chapman, Ira Gabrielson, Bob Marshall, Rosalie Edge, Ding Darling, Aldo Leopold, J. Clark Salyer, and Ludlow Griscom.

There’s no doubt that 744 pages is an investment of time. But if you take it on, you will undoubtedly be rewarded.