"The Imperial Cruise" Review.

I was recently given the book The Imperial Cruise written by James Bradley, the same author who brought us Flyboys and Flags of Our Fathers.

Bradley's father, John, has been enshrined in the annals of U.S. history as one of the men who raised the flag on Mount Suribachi on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. James wrote of those tales and thrilled movie-goers with the big screen versions of those books. In The Imperial Cruise, James intends to uncover the events that led to that "day that would live in infamy", December 7, 1941. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ushered the U.S. into a world at war and Bradley's question was "Why?" and the book he wrote after his discovery is fascinating to say the least.

The crux of the book explains the expansion of two U.S. doctrines of the late 19th century, The Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, to the maritime claims of the Caribbean and the Pacific. The man at the center of this expansion is the visceral image of the pioneering U.S., Theodore Roosevelt. Bradley paints the life of the "Rough Rider" with narrower strokes than previous biographies and focuses on Teddy's Teutonic leanings and exposes his racially-driven motives to expand the U.S. sphere of influence beyond the western shore, "following the sun". The conquest of the Philippines and the absorption of the Hawaiian islands were stepping stones to the "Open Door" doctrine into the Orient and China in particular. He referred to it as "civilizing the Orient".

Bradley makes a brilliantly resourced case for the covert actions of T.R. and his yes-man William Taft in making deals behind the backs of Congress. These deals were with the Japanese in their conquests against Russia and Korea, in an effort to create a safety zone or buffer between Czarist Russia and the islands of Japan.

Bradley also relies on Samuel Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain, the outspoken anti-imperialist who wrote seething critiques about the Moro Massacre in the Philippines, by using his stories to re-paint the fervor of the conquest of the Philippines.

What I find of further interest beyond what Bradley put together were the avenues that could be extended beyond WWII and the Korean war. The Moro were a Muslim group within the Philippines and still control the southern islands of that archipelago. Also, the Chinese "Open Door/Closed Door" U.S. relations created in the very early years of the 20th century. Many reasonable people would tell you that this is all antiquated and has little influence on relations a century later, but I say that once an idea has been unleashed upon the world, it is very hard to put back in the box. What Roosevelt called "civilizing of the world" we still call "spreading democracy". I would surmise that the doctrines espoused in 1900 are still sought today. To that I say history is not something we should emulate, it is something we should avoid and move beyond, especially if it is replete with imperial ideals.

The Imperial Cruise