Theodore Roosevelt began life as a chronically ill boy struggling with severe asthma in a darkened New York bedroom, surrounded by taxidermy. This deep dive traces how he deliberately rebuilt himself through grueling exercise and boxing, forging the philosophy of the strenuous life that would guide his entire career.

We follow him through the double tragedy of 1884, his escape to the Dakota Badlands, his night patrols as New York police commissioner, the Rough Riders, and the political scheme that accidentally made him president at 42. From trust busting and the Square Deal to 230 million acres of protected land, the Nobel Peace Prize, a bullet in the chest in Milwaukee, and the River of Doubt, this is the story of a man who refused to accept his limits.

• How a childhood battle with asthma shaped his lifelong belief in the strenuous life
• How party bosses tried to bury him in the vice presidency and instead handed him the White House
• How he used the Sherman Antitrust Act against Northern Securities and pushed through food and meat inspection laws
• How the Antiquities Act and the U.S. Forest Service became tools of his conservation legacy
• The 1912 Bull Moose campaign, the 90-minute speech after being shot, and the Amazon expedition that ruined his health