While supported by facts, the commentary in-between the presented quotes is overdone and opinionated… a personal grudge on expansionist America.

If an author is going to dig in depth regarding historical American politicians dirt and “ill intentions” regarding expansionism why not explore the shortfalls of other nations and leaders.

I expected a better book from Bradley, it almost seems like he has to make up for writing about Japs eating Americans on Chi-chi-Jima (Flyboys).

Bradley appears to be giving a current liberal opinion on past history, with a liberal smattering of self-hate.

Looking back in history, our ascension as a world-power (and every world power) is based upon strong conquering weak, one should not be so quick to insult historical leaders while enjoying all of the benefits.

The enlightened man realizes that what we did to the Indians and Philippine’s was an abomination, the practical man realizes it was necessary to expand as a nation. History is written by the victors, Bradley is ashamed he is on the winning side.

Mr. Bradley is a typical member of the “bash America” crowd, finding one sided evil in just about every detail of american history. It was bad enough in “Flyboys”, but he has gone over the top here with his aryan theories. His ghost writer Mr. Powers must be thanked for keeping him under control in “Flags of our Fathers”

One wonders what made him so angry…

My only criticism of the book is the obvious emotion Mr. Bradley interjects. The piece would have been much more powerful without the overuse of sarcastic comments. There was no need to overdo the “Princess Alice” and “Big Bill” references, etc. The whole sub-story about the apparent “courtship” between Alice Roosevelt and Nick Longworth — which was admittedly consistent with Mr. Bradley’s theme that everyone associated with the cruise was bad in many ways — really added nothing to the substantive discussion. (I’ve met Mr. Bradley, and he comes across as somewhat of a bully, and that is the way he sounds when he piles on to Alice and Nick for no apparent reason related to Asian-American history.)

Anyone who has read Flags of Our Fathers will recall the conversation that probably gave rise to this book. Over dinner Mr. Bradley tried to explain “the rest of the story,” as he then thought he understood it, to his veteran father. He recalls his father refusing to engage in the discussion and simply giving him another piece of turkey. I get the sense that Mr. Bradley wanted to write this book for his father, as (at best) a protective son, or (at worst) an “I told you so” son, still trying to explain to someone beyond the grave the “real” cause of all the hurt. I also sense, from what Mr. Bradley wrote of his father, that James Bradley would not have read his son’s book — that after Iwo Jima it was eternally too late for any of those things to make any difference to him. If Mr. Bradley had realized that, perhaps he would have written the book for the rest of us instead, and it would be more tempered in tone — and thus a better book.

In conclusion, read the book, but be prepared for some gratuitous indignation that wastes some of your time. I hope it won’t take a revised edition to get it into college curricula someday. My World War II class would have been better with a book such as Mr. Bradley’s, despite it’s shortcomings.

The result of that research led him to the conclusion that it was because of white supremacy. It led him to investigate how insidious and ridiculously ludicrous white people could be when it came to justifying white people history. The sole premise of this book, dangerous as it is, IS that white people lie, fight for, and die for…only other white people.

The author of this book came to this conclusion. The purpose of this book is to define why.

I am white.

Bradley’s description of Anerican treatment of the Philippines and its people is a powerful and nearly unknown historical event for most Americans. The policies of Theodore Roosevelt toward Japan and Korea were eye-opening to me and make a good argument for the Pearl Harbor attack. Overall, I enjoyed “The Imperial Cruise” and learned much from it. DJZ

PS: I myself volunteered for Viet Nam and I had six relatives in World War II, one of them killed in a B-17 over Germany, another on the third ship into Tokyo Bay after two years of combat. I’ve also read the entire U.S. diplomatic correspondence that led up to the “Sneak Attack” and inside accounts of the Japanese cabinet meeting that concluded — perhaps correctly — that if Japan didn’t strike first, America might seize the initiative. Henry Stinson was on record: war is inevitable due to an American oil embargo (and deliberately insulting diplomacy orchestrated by Harry Dexter White, a Soviet agent, and Stanley Hornbeck, a ‘China Expert’ who couldn’t speak Chinese but hated Japan since the early 1900s when other Americans liked them. We often forget that Japan was a U.S. ally in World War I.) Stinson urged the FDR administration to let Japan fire the first shot — possibly in the hopes of unifying the American people for a war in Europe that 80 per cent of Americans disapproved of.) The Japanese did some awful things in China and Korea. The U.S. did some awful things in the Philippines. But the records show that the United States deliberately instigated the Pacific War to help Britain, China, and Stalin and then blamed the “sneaky little Japs.” Bradley’s book is an honest forerunner to the FDR administration’s stupid sacrifice of brave Americans at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines and at Wake and Guam, and to FDR and Truman’s mass murder of Japanese women and children. It’s also very readable although he pounds a little hard to convince people of how racist the country was 100 years ago. He isn’t making this stuff up.

As well, there is a decided lack of negative attention brought to other races/cultures. It is one of the most incidious forms of racism to assume that others do not have to measure up to the same standards that we measure ourselves because they are somehow not expected to be equal. Imperialistic anti-white tendencies were part of Japan and China’s cluture before TR was even a Hersey bar in his daddy’s back pocket and existed in parallel to this story…but are not mentioned? The villians or victims, two dimensional storytelling is boring and tired even when done well, and this is not. It has been one long rant from page 1 to my current 99.

I have lived abroad in the EU and Asia, and I have been treated well and poorly, because of my skin and my passport. It is not a one-sided story, a simplistic equation that skin or nation makes the person a villian or victim. However, promoting that idea is a timeless fiction, spanning from earliest written history to today. And it sells books. whether the author is a cynic or a fool.

This was a library book for me, so I guess I paid a little bit for it in my taxes. Unless something changes soon though, it will become one of the few books that I don’t finish and I will still feel that I paid too much. At best, treat this as a piece of fiction, a kind of phamplet promoting an unbalanced version of history, perhaps like some SF story about an alternate universe where color (pun intended) hasn’t been invented and all things are black or white.

I am not surprised that most of the reviews on this site are negative and against this book. From my personal experience, Americans are completely unaware what happens outside their boarders, and even today when I travel, Americans regularly give the impression that they know what is best, their way is the best way, and that everyone is incapable of doing anything as well as America can.

I think this book should be a required reading in every American high school.

Foreign policy is alway made with an eye to the present and forseeable future. Thus, we partnered with the Soviets in fighting the Nazi’s … perhaps ensuring the survival of Stalin’s murderous regime. Was it worth it…Seemed so at the time and in the verdict of history.

TR did reflect is time. Certainly not all of his thought and writings are correct in terms of viewing all of God’s people equally. The fact is, like Lincoln (who did view blacks as inferior even while setting them free), TR did great things for the world and the United States. On balance, he deserves his label as one of America’s great presidents and statesmen.