This book opened my eyes to Manifest Destiny and the negative effects caused by America's aggressive attempt to conquer everything in sight.

Very good book but a little sad as to the state of America's foreign affairs around 1900.

Like a lot of Americans, I learned the broad strokes about the Pacific theater in World War II. The Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor. Attacked us! Obviously, we couldn’t just stand pat. So we warred with them from island-to-island until we had no choice but to drop the atomic bomb and end the war. They were the aggressor and it was all their fault.

I’m reluctant to call this narrative propaganda. Japan did attack us. But the history of the war in the Pacific is far more complicated. At least, that’s what James D. Bradley posits in this work.

I had briefly listened to Bradley’s Flag of Our Fathers tale on his dad being one of the flag-raisers at Iwo Jima. The book, again what little I heard, did a good job of excavating his experience and how it impacted his family moving forward, especially as his son began to grow fond of Japan.

In this book, he takes a broader look at what led to the war. Using a diplomacy cruise featuring future President Taft, President’s daughter and noted socialite Alice Roosevelt and others, Bradley traces the areas of the cruise with the developing US imperialist expansion policy in the west. He covers each territory traveled to, with a background on what the US did (or did not do) to colonize it and/or influence it for the sake of exploited resources (and in some cases, labor).

Everything comes back to Japan. Bradley’s thesis is that the US (and to a lesser degree, the UK) helped influence the Japanese in a western style (part of what inspired the Meiji restoration) to help it harbor its own imperial ambitions. All this was done at the behest of Teddy Roosevelt, who sought to colonize the islands and draw them for all they’re worth.

This is a readable, fascinating slice of counter-narrative history but I can’t give it more than three stars. The framing device was essentially useless save for commentary on Alice Roosevelt’s dresses or Bill Taft’s laughter. The one critical moment where Taft essentially carries out a covert diplomatic mission to allow Japan to annex Korea at the US’ behest (serving as a buffer for Russian expansion). There’s been a lot of speculation that this actually happened, though there’s no historical confirmation. For the record, I can believe some version of it happened but Bradley isn’t a historian so his use of primary source documentary isn’t clean. Coupled with redundancies and poor editorial choices and this isn’t exactly something worthy of awards.

However, for folks who don’t know the larger narrative of Pacific expansion could do worse than start here. It’s easy to digest and will give the reader a good start to building up knowledge on the subject.

The overall premise of using the Taft/Roosevelt cruise as a framework for this history wasn't that useful, but the discussion of the secret dealings and generally poor American behavior in Asia at the turn of the century is eye-opening.

May return to this someday, but the paragraphs I skimmed were only mildly interesting, so probably not.

A fascinating look into some of Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy maneuvers. The Imperial Cruise was excessively readable and engaging, and I was pulled into Bradley's telling of how Aryan ideals affected American interactions in Asia. There was not only hard politics, but personal lives and histories were explored as well including the scandals of Alice Roosevelt.

I have a sneaking suspicion that counter evidence was left out, but Bradley supports many of his claims with quotes and primary sources. There are also some great pictures along the book which really complemented the reading. My only concern is in other reviews it seems some basic history was mistold, but as I said before enough primary evidence is provided to have the reader make similar conclusions to Bradley.

Recommended for anyone interested in a different view of Teddy Roosevelt, or with an inkling of interest in American Imperialism or Asian politics.

Received for free through Goodreads First Reads!

I read this for a history book club--I never would have picked it up on my own--and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The "Imperial Cruise" itself is more of a loose framework Bradley uses to anchor his larger discussion of US foreign policy before and during the McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt administrations. Bradley traces US colonial ambitions in Hawaii and the Philippines back to the concepts of the Monroe Doctrine (kind of a reach), Manifest Destiny, and above all, rampant racism and notions of White Supremacy. Bradley argues that these beliefs also informed TR's disastrous interventions in East Asia, and further insists that those interventions would lead directly to World War II in the Pacific (and, less directly, to the rise of Mao, as well as the Vietnam War).

Bradley's portrait of TR is fascinating, and that alone was worth the read for me. His actively-footnoted case for the role of White Supremacy in TR's foreign policy is excellent, important, and (of course) depressing. The USA's actions in Hawaii and the Philippines are horrific (and I wish I had known about this stuff before I was in my 30s!). His case for TR's actions leading into WWII was fairly convincing for me, the rest of it less so, but nonetheless I found the book a very engaging and educational read.

The book does tend to fall apart near the end, and my impression is that, after all his research into the atrocities committed in the Philippines, all the promises the US broke (to multiple "allies"!), and the epic racism of the time, Bradley was so overwhelmed his grief and anger got the better of him, and he lost the plot (so to speak). I sympathize fully, but it does make for a messy, unsatisfying (and, in places, unconvincing) end to an otherwise excellent book.