In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Taft, his gun-toting daughter Alice and a gaggle of congressmen on a mission to Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. There, they would quietly forge a series of agreements that divided up Asia. At the time, Roosevelt was bully-confident about America's future on the continent. But these secret pacts lit the fuse that would-decades later-result in a number of devastating wars: WWII, the Korean War, the communist revolution in China.
One hundred years later, James Bradley retraces that epic voyage and discovers the remarkable truth about America's vast imperial past-and its world-shaking consequences. Full of fascinating characters and brilliantly told, THE IMPERIAL CRUISE will forever reshape the way we understand U.S. history
The Imperial CruiseA Secret History of Empire and War
James Bradley
Summary
The Imperial Cruise
Narrarated by: Richard Poe
eMusic Review 0
11.24.09
James Bradley, The Imperial Cruise
2009 | Label: Little, Brown
An eye-opening account of a 1905 US trip to Asia that will change what you thought you know about American/Asian relations
James Bradley's The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War seemingly asks you to forget everything you thought you knew about American involvement in Asia. An account of a 1905 trip/PR junket to the Far East engineered by Teddy Roosevelt, and attended by Roosevelt's daughter Alice, Secretary of War (and future President) William Howard Taft and over three dozen other officials, The Imperial Cruise takes its spin from the 20/20 view of hindsight.
Bradley, whose father was one of the men raising the flag in the iconic image of Iwo Jima, explains that the true account of this trip to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China and Korea, "will not be found in our history books, our monuments or movies, or our postage stamps. Here was the match that lit the fuse, and yet for decades we paid attention only to the dynamite." Bradley argues that, had it not been for the unnecessary intervention an ultimately destabilizing US delegation that encouraged unfettered Japanese expansion in the early years of the century, much of the turmoil in the Pacific theater during WW II — and later in the Korean War — could have been avoided.
Between stories of Alice Roosevelt's debauched behavior on the trip, Taft's ultimate belief in the President's vision and casual racism (the US considered the Japanese to be "Honorary Aryans" due to their westernization), Bradley paints a picture of a diplomatic mission wherein no one had any true concept of the cultures and politics they were encountering. The bulk of the text, as narrated by Richard Poe, keeps a clinically cool distance from the antagonism of Bradley's thesis, but when read by the author himself, it's impossible to dismiss (what is ultimately personal) anger.