Before delving into the coverage of Theodore and Woodrow: How Two Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom, one must warn any reader of the ungenerous treatment of two iconic presidents that tend to be much beloved. After all, one of these men has their likeness carved into a very living mountain in South Dakota. Judge Andrew P. Napolitano never purports for this work to be a flattering portrayal of Theodore or Woodrow. Indeed it is a unrelenting assault on the character of two of the most effective adversaries to the notions of individual liberty, state’s rights, and constitutional government as understood by the Founding Fathers of the United States. This book is mostly laid out, as the author points out in his note at the beginning of the book, as “quite simply, a case against them” (xii). Only the introduction of the book before the numeric numbering spends any amount of time looking at the lives of the presidents. This lends to the overall impression one gets about Napolitano’s work and how it is mainly about the policies of these two colossal figures of the Progressive Era. The introduction of the book spends some time showing the nature of the two men that are the focus of the Judge’s book. For instance, that Roosevelt is the second child of a wealthy and politically connected family which afforded no small amount of fortune and luxury to the future president. In the following paragraph we learn that Wilson was born into a middle-class family of Protestant ministers (xiii). The author then shows us how even with these different situations there are many similarities. We learn about both suffering from handicaps in their youth (xiii, xiv), how the boys refused to be deterred from their goals and pursued them anyway (xiv), and their ultimate victory in overcoming these issues (xiv, xv). The next portion of the chapter sheds light on the men’s rise to power. It goes over their careers in a cursory manner; first Roosevelt (xv, xvi) and then Wilson (xvi-xvii). The end of this chapter works to introduce the key thesis of the book. Despite animosity between the two (xvi, xvii) and superficial differences between the men, they share two important things, a Progressive and Redistributionist ideology, the proper use of presidential and federal power, and a disillusionment and melancholy disappointment with their work at the end (xvii). Chapter One of “Theodore and Woodrow” begins as more of a history lesson about party politics. It focuses especially on the Progressive Era, serving as a foundation for the conclusion at its end. The author first discusses political parties as conceived at the founding of the United States: non-existent in founding documents and warned against in No. 9 and No. 10 of the Federalist Papers (1,2). He then moves into the first political parties plus the journey to the modern two parties we are familiar with today (3). The Judge takes a break from this general overview to focus in on President Roosevelt’s rise to political power and how he winded up as president “despite his party and not because of it” (5). The focus continues to be party politics from page four on, even with the focus on Theodore’s involvement and influence. Some time is spent on President William Howard Taft (6-9), most specifically the interplay between him, Roosevelt, and Wilson. The climax of this chapter and the history lesson therein is the three party run-off between Taft, Wilson, and Roosevelt and the formation of Roosevelt’s third party: the Progressive Party or Bull Moose Party (9-17). The conclusion of this chapter seems to be the assertion that the fallout and lessons learned from a third-party run off of this fashion impacted and greatly influenced the shift of American Politics from then on (18-19). Ultimately we are left the message that “the Progressives reworked society to their image” (19). With the exception of the concluding Chapter 16, the rest of the chapters in the books are arranged like a case study or argument on a particular topic. One might well expect this from a legally trained professional, yet each study does have a great deal of history woven in; a testament to the Judge’s historical training as well. The rest of this summary portion of the book review is broken down into five pieces: Domestic policy changes covered in chapters 3, 10, 11, and 14; Intellectual changes in chapters 2, 5, and 6; Financial changes in 4, 8, 9, and 15; War in chapters 7, 12, and 13; And finally, appropriately, the conclusion chapter 16. The major domestic policy shifts covered in chapters 3, 10, 11, and 14 are the regulatory state, Conservation, Prohibition, and domestic policies during WWI, respectively. Considering the regulatory state Napolitano starts with a modern example of the term (36,37). The regulatory body he uses as his example is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). After his snapshot of the administration’s overreach in 2010 he moves into the histo