Imperial Cruise, James Bradley

The Imperial Cruise:  A Secret History of Empire and War by James Bradley was recommended to me by a relative of a friend who is of Phillipino descent.  It was made clear to me that this book would be troubling.

Started: 7/21/2013
Completed: 7/26/2013
Recommendation: Conservatively recommended
Recommended By: Relative of a friend

Review:

There is no doubt that James Bradley thinks little of Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft.  I was frankly stunned at the amount of evidence he put together to demonstrate why he holds this opinion.  The American policies toward the "Far East" starting in the late 1890s is simply repulsive to a modern reader.  I think that you have to be a skin head to find the policy anything less than reprehensible.  I have known that Teddy had some edges to him, but I had no idea how bad it was.  The horrible things we did in the Philippines and in the far east in general are simply unspeakable.  We visited the Aryan myth on the Far East before Hitler could do the same on Europe in general.  Bradley argues that  the actions of the United States led inevitably to the Japanese attack on us in WWII.  While his argument may be overly strong, it has legs.