The Imperial Cruise : : a Secret History of Empire and war

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Maps on lining papers.
One hundred years later -- Civilization follows the Sun -- Benevolent intentions -- Pacific Negroes -- Haoles -- Honorary Aryans -- Playing Roosevelt's game -- The Japanese Monroe Doctrine for Asia -- The imperial cruise -- Roosevelt's open and closed doors -- Incognito in Japan -- Sellout in Seoul -- Following the Sun.
Analyzes the multinational conflicts that set the stage for World War II, the Chinese communist revolution, and the Korean War, documenting Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 diplomatic mission in the Pacific through which the United States forged ill-fated covert agreements.

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new perspective submitted by unknown on March 18, 2010, 9:57pm This book gives you a totally new perspective on Teddy Roosevelt and the social norms of his time. A real eye-opener !

Some good, but a lot of 'iffy'/bad history submitted by hathaway1066 on August 1, 2016, 12:57pm Bradley's telling of Teddy Roosevelt's life and times brings out--and hammers home--the everyday, unquestioned racism of that era and the extent to which it influenced leaders like Roosevelt and the general outlook of Americans. For example, he includes editorial cartoons that depict people from the Philippines as dark-skinned, child-like racist stereotypes of Africans, to drive home the point of American racism and short-sightedness. There are sever examples of such, as well as quotes of Roosevelt, Churchill, and other soon-to-be or then world leaders, all redolent with racism, touching on events in the Pacific as well as the Caribbean.

That part of the book is troubling and a revelation if taken with only casual awareness of that Jim Crow era of racism. It is helpful to have the racism of that era spotlighted, however troubling the truth of the matter may be.

But Bradley's larger thesis is that T.R., due to such racism, initiated policies in the far Pacific that led to an Imperial Japan's expansion and conquest of the Korean peninsula, further penetration into China, and eventually the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As many reviewers and critics point out, this is giving TR a VERY profound and far reaching effect and denying any responsibility for those leaders, in many countries, who came after him for the next 30 years.

Historians criticize Bradley's selective weighting of facts to suit his thesis and general portrayal of T.R., too, regardless of how those facts relate to the idea of Roosevelt having set U.S. policy in the Pacific. Bradley is criticized for downplaying those aspects of Roosevelt's life and career that were admirable (or at least, were admired) so as to present him as a falsifying, exaggerating pretender to robust manhood and success, who skated from one political disaster to the next office just ahead of being discovered.

As a counter-weight to an adulatory, hero-worshipping account of Teddy Roosevelt, this might be a useful counter-weight, but on its own I don't think it's a sound, objective source either for learning about T.R., or for understanding the deeper causes and origins of WW 2 in the Pacific.