Most Americans have long assumed their country, headed by elected, generally benevolent and wise individuals, stood for democracy, progress and the good of mankind. Few have seen into the dark corners of the purified history of this great nation. This amazingly readable, thoroughly researched and highly educational book allows a sobering glimpse into the emergent expansionist ambitions of the US leadership during Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt's presidency convinced of the superiority of their race, and the moral rights to forcibly "civilize" those peoples, like the Hawaiians, the Cubans, and the Filipinos, who actually by the geographic location of their lands made perfect targets for the expansionist plans of those "following the sun".
Following the cruise of Alice Roosevelt, daughter of president Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt , secretary of war and future president William Howard Taft and other prominent individuals from Washington to San Francisco, across the Pacific to Japan, the Philippines, to China and back, as the framework, Bradley skillfully weaves the major US foreign policy events, a lot of them indeed blunders, into the story. He relates how the US tossed Spain out of the saddle in 1898 during the McKinley administration seizing Spanish interests Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. From a British colony, America becomes a colonizing power herself. The story of the city boy turned cowboy, nature man, Aryan hero Teddy Roosevelt is portrayed in plentiful detail. The systematic killing, raping, torturing and sacking of the Cuban and Filipinos, also treated in gruesome colours, is a chapter in the American history none should be proud of. "I am so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth," Roosevelt expressed. These are the backdrop against which Bradley draws the book's fundamental conclusion: idiotic, racially motivated and filled with imperial ambitions (incidentally the title of another remarkable book by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian), American foreign policy in the late 1800's and early 1900's lead to deep resentment about the US in the Pacific, the rise of imperial Japan, and ultimately, to 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and thus World War II.
Following the cruise of Alice Roosevelt, daughter of president Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt , secretary of war and future president William Howard Taft and other prominent individuals from Washington to San Francisco, across the Pacific to Japan, the Philippines, to China and back, as the framework, Bradley skillfully weaves the major US foreign policy events, a lot of them indeed blunders, into the story. He relates how the US tossed Spain out of the saddle in 1898 during the McKinley administration seizing Spanish interests Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. From a British colony, America becomes a colonizing power herself. The story of the city boy turned cowboy, nature man, Aryan hero Teddy Roosevelt is portrayed in plentiful detail. The systematic killing, raping, torturing and sacking of the Cuban and Filipinos, also treated in gruesome colours, is a chapter in the American history none should be proud of. "I am so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth," Roosevelt expressed. These are the backdrop against which Bradley draws the book's fundamental conclusion: idiotic, racially motivated and filled with imperial ambitions (incidentally the title of another remarkable book by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian), American foreign policy in the late 1800's and early 1900's lead to deep resentment about the US in the Pacific, the rise of imperial Japan, and ultimately, to 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and thus World War II.
