Building a "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain was a top priority for President Theodore Roosevelt, the talented, hands-on diplomatist who occupied the White House from 1901 until 1909.

William Tilchin's Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire looks closely at Roosevelt's views of and responses to British positions and actions during many important diplomatic episodes, including the Anglo-German attack on Venezuela, the Alaskan boundary dispute, the Russo-Japanese War, the Moroccan crisis, and the Newfoundland fisheries trouble, with particular attention being paid to the previously untold stories of the Jamaica incident of 1907 and the Olympic Games controversy of 1908.

Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire ultimately takes a larger view of Roosevelt's relationship with Great Britain as Tilchin probes the president's outlook on the British Empire's contribution to the maintenance of international peace and to the progress of civilization.