Mark Twain and the Colonel tells the story of America between 1890 and 1910 through the fully engaged involvement of the eraamprsquos two most vital participants Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt. At this pivotal moment in our history the previously frontierdriven expansion of America was being replaced by an America that had begun to legitimately think of itself as a world power and a dominant presence and leader on the international stage. Tensions within the new world power manifested nowhere more tellingly than between our greatest humorist and our youngest President whose warring visions of what America could and ought to be were radically different but nevertheless laid the bedrock for modern America ampndash its arguments achievements and aspirations ampndash as we came to see it through the twentieth century and to the present day.