The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James D. BradleyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
From the movie made of Flags of Our Fathers and recent reading his Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, I was drawn to read another history by James D. Bradley. This one is easily the most provocative and probably important of the trio. Bluntly stated as an "American Aryan" outlook, Bradley exposes a racist imperialism to Teddy's America and self-created image. Seeing in the Japanese a potential ally in a West-facing tide of civilization, T. R. anointed The Land of the Rising Sun as inheritors of their own version of The Monroe Doctrine -- something that grew into a monstrous evil of WW II's PTO. Meanwhile the instigated Spanish-American War led to a brutal American treatment of The Philippines, including the roots of The Moro Conflict (1899–1913). This armed conflict between the Moro people and the United States military during the Philippine-American War pitted the U.S. against Muslim people who lived in the Southern Philippines. Off and on, through advisors as support, this initiated basically a century of conflict with a Muslim insurgency in the area. Such education including the revelation of the era's effectively racist imperialism and Teddy's carefully cultivated image through such far-sighted manipulations as "posterity letters" placing this work along with Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building and A People's History of the United States as necessary reading for understanding the 19th Century roots of America's role in global politics.
I have a feeling Teddy's views on nativism etc. would have found him comfortable and unsurprised by Trump and understanding Teddy can do much to explain how we got here.
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