An amazingly uncomplimentary history of Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, and the US presence in Asia in the early 1900's. Made me want to dig further into Roosevelt's background because this is definitely not the image I had of him. It also would be interesting to read about this era from the Japanese perspective because Bradley's contention is that the US set ourselves up for WW-II and Pearl Harbor by the actions we took and encouraged in the early 1900s.

Shocking! Before I began to read this book, I had this vision of Teddy Roosevelt as this manly outdoors man. When you begin to flip the pages you quickly find out that Teddy wasn't and isn't what people have portrayed, nor what he himself portrayed. This is a great book that sheds light on the beginning of the problems that America would face in the Pacific in the middle of the Century.

The cumulative comments of other reviewers provide adequate perspective on James Bradley's thesis on the influence + consequences of a widely-held deep belief in "Divine Aryan Eminence" - so no more need be added.

However, while Teddy Roosevelt + Big-Bill Taft are the centerpiece of this slice of the chronicles in the 19th-20th century - I am certain there is an "Imperial Cruise" underlying every person in history that has altered the course of social, economic, political evolution.

"Revisionist" views should make one wonder what has been the MOST revised - history as originally learned, or as later discovered.

The information presented in Imperial Cruise is provocative - the carefully self-crafted persona of Mt. Rushmore Theodore's rough-rider rule of the rifle - the military invasions and occupations to pacify, civilize, OR exterminate the "Dark Others" - might-makes-right manifest destinies - secret conspiracies with the "Honorary Aryans" in Asia - the wealth of the great New England families derived from illegal opium trade - ultimate supremacy of Teutonic Anglo-Saxon White-Christian "globe girdling destiny" to "follow the sun" and "civilize the lesser races."

Overall, as opposed to the time-traveler jumping around in history - I would have preferred a simpler chronological framework to tell the story. And, I am definitely going to find out more about "Princess Alice."

Good history that gave a view into US relations in Asia that isn't well known... The title is a little misleading though, and the story of the cruise itself is broken up into tiny bits. A bit too moralistic for my taste - always tricky to apply today's moral standards to history.

An education in early American foreign policy and American racism. It blew the doors off everything I thought I knew about Teddy Roosevelt, pre-WWII Japan and America’s long racist past.

Update:
When I first started re-reading this book, I had no recollection of reading it before. in this case, I believe that listening to it as an audio-book did me a disservice. Seeing the pictures and the incontrovertible evidence which is difficult if not impossible to convey in an audio-book. I will say that Bradley's obvious bias made it difficult for me to continue. As an amateur historian looking at the same primary source documents, I believe that Bradley came to an accurate conclusion. He presented it in a much less than objective manner with his word choice.
The overall format of the book, history framed within the context of the Pacific voyage of Taft and Princess Alice, worked much better in print than in audio-book.
For once, a second reading of the book improved my opinion.

I was incredibly disappointed with this book. My previous experience with Bradley's work had been positive. This book throws the light of suspicion over his other work. Not only is the book structurally weak (the title imposes a structure of a voyage taken by Taft and Alice Roosevelt yet infrequently describes this voyage in the narrative) it positively reeks of bias. Everything done by Americans or white Europeans was obviously wrong and led to the horrible events of World War II, according to the author. Not only is this patently false, Bradley forces himself to perform logic gymnastics. Honestly, I'm surprised that a reputable publisher would publish this book at all,'much less under the guise of reputable history. It is nothing of the sort.

Fair Warning: This book holds zero punches on TR. I knew some of the negative aspects and ideals that he had, but this shined a light on all of them and dissects them like I've never read before. Reading about anyone that shared his thoughts on race as strongly as he did is hard, it's even harder when it is someone that has been so whitewashed and looked up to over the years. The man's face is carved on Mount Rushmore for criminy's sake. His predecessors, I can almost give a pass because they didn't have the science to refute or think differently about race. However, just about all of our founding fathers that share space on that massive mountain were conflicted by the questions of race at least in their personal life and writings if not their public persona.

A surprising look at the history of American imperialism, focusing in particular on Teddy Roosevelt and William Taft and their roles in the Spanish American war, the annexation of Hawaii, and the possession of Cuba and the Philippines. Rather hard to read at times, because of the horrifically racist things that the main actors in the story say. I've read several other biographies of Roosevelt, and I had no idea how obsessed he was with "Teuton purity".

The wildest thing about this book was how it illuminated the degree to which everything about our nation was founded and built around race and racism. Historical fiction just doesn't do justice to the way that presidents/the prevailing thought worked.

I wasn't even going to review this but then I looked at all the 1 star reviews from people calling it revisionist tripe. Lol, five stars from me. Tell 'em.