Publisher's Weekly Review
Theodore Roosevelt steers America onto the shoals of imperialism in this stridently disapproving study of early 20th-century U.S. policy in Asia. Bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers, Bradley traces a 1905 voyage to Asia by Roosevelt's emissary William Howard Taft, who negotiated a secret agreement in which America and Japan recognized each other's conquests of the Philippines and Korea. (Roosevelt's flamboyant, pistol-packing daughter Alice went along to generate publicity, and Bradley highlights her antics.) Each port of call prompts a case study of American misdeeds: the brutal counterinsurgency in the Philippines; the takeover of Hawaii by American sugar barons; Roosevelt's betrayal of promises to protect Korea, which "greenlighted" Japanese expansionism and thus makes him responsible for Pearl Harbor. Bradley explores the racist underpinnings of Roosevelt's policies and paradoxical embrace of the Japanese as "Honorary Aryans." Bradley's critique of Rooseveltian imperialism is compelling but unbalanced. He doesn't explain how Roosevelt could have evicted the Japanese from Korea, and insinuates that the Japanese imperial project was the brainstorm of American advisers. Ironically, his view of Asian history, like Roosevelt's, denies agency to the Asians themselves. Photos, maps. One-day laydown. (Nov. 24) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Bradley's first books, Flags of Our Fathers (2000) and Flyboys (2003), were sensationally popular World War II combat stories. His new one, about U.S.-Japanese diplomacy in 1905, represents a departure. Asserting a causal connection between diplomatic understandings reached then and war 36 years later, Bradley dramatizes his case with a delegation Theodore Roosevelt dispatched to Japan in the summer of 1905. Led by Secretary of War William Taft and ornamented by the president's quotable daughter Alice, it sailed while TR hosted the peace conference between victorious Japan and defeated Russia. As he recounts the itinerary of Taft's cruise, Bradley discusses attitudes of social Darwinism and white superiority that were then prevalent and expressed by TR and Taft. They modified their instincts, Bradley argues, in dealing with nonwhite Japan, and secretly conceded it possession of Korea. This is what Bradley asserts was a prerequisite to Pearl Harbor in 1941, a dubious thesis when the tensions of the 1930s stemmed from general Japanese aggressiveness, not its control of Korea per se. Bradley does fine on 1905 but falters when predicting the future.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2009 Booklist
Choice Review
Popular writer Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers, 2000) traces the roots of Japanese-US antipathy to Theodore Roosevelt's race-based diplomacy--"the match that lit the fuse" of the bomb that exploded at Pearl Harbor. After exploring Roosevelt's mind-set that rendered him incapable of understanding Asians, Bradley uses the 1905 Asian cruise of Secretary of War William Howard Taft, Roosevelt's daughter, Alice, and 30 members of Congress as a lens to examine US relations with Hawai'i, Japan, Korea, China, and the Philippines. In the book's most novel portion, he describes social events that reflected the strict separation of the races. Bradley also weaves together diplomatic events to provide a provocative thesis: during the four-month cruise, Taft negotiated, on Roosevelt's behalf, a series of secret treaties highly favorable to the Japanese, whom Roosevelt "anointed ... as Asia's civilizer" because they had become Westernized and thus, he thought, were superior to their neighbors. Indicative of Bradley's interpretation and style, the penultimate chapter, "Sellout in Seoul," explains how "Big Bill" Taft rejected pleas from Emperor Gojong of Korea and Roosevelt "green-lighted Japanese imperialism." Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. J. C. Bradford Texas A&M University
Library Journal Review
Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers) has written a compelling book on a forgotten diplomatic mission. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt sent Secretary of War William Howard Taft on a cruise to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea, a diplomatic mission that also included Roosevelt's daughter, Alice. The mission was to solidify a secret U.S.-Japanese agreement to allow Japan to expand into Korea and China, with the irrepressible Alice distracting reporters. This agreement, resulting in the Treaty of Portsmouth, ultimately helped spark not only World War II in the Pacific but the 1949 Chinese Revolution and the Korean War. Bradley describes Taft and Roosevelt as firm believers in the White Man's Burden: since Japan embraced Western culture, Roosevelt wanted it to spread that culture to the rest of Asia. However, their policies backfired because anti-American feelings grew in China, the Philippines, and Korea as America turned its back on these countries, while America and Europe did not check Japanese aggression. Ultimately, Bradley reminds readers in well-cited detail of Roosevelt's often overlooked racist attitudes. Bradley's writing style will appeal to the general reader, with its good mix of letters, newspapers, and sound secondary sources. VERDICT Anyone interested in American history will want to read this book, especially those who want background on the foreign policy of this first sitting President to win the Nobel peace prize. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/09.]-Bryan Craig, MLS, Nellysford, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
