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James Bradley's "The Imperial Cruise" is an Outrage, Pure and Simple


Jonathan S. Tobin, "Smearing Theodore Roosevelt," Commentary, March 2010, pp. 26-29.  Tobin's review essay is a masterpiece of insight and literary expression.  In his concluding section, after noting and criticizing earlier negative portraits of TR by Henry Pringle and Richard Hofstadter, Tobin remarks:  "But the defamatory efforts of Thomas and Bradley represent a new, and especially low, chapter in ideological American historiography."  Then, countering Bradley's and Thomas's obvious personal dislike of Roosevelt, Tobin offers an astute closing observation that can be read as explaining the enduring success of the politically diverse and nonpartisan Theodore Roosevelt Association:  "The legacy that has so endeared Theodore Roosevelt to successive generations is not so much his progressivism, enthusiasm for global American power, or even his environmentalism.  It is, instead, based on an understanding that the spirit of adventure, service, sacrifice, and yes, valor that Theodore Roosevelt exemplified is one they find uniquely admirable regardless of the politics of his day or our own.  Far from discrediting him, these virtues are precisely the ones that have earned him his enduring popularity.  One suspects that as long as Americans admire courage, this will remain the case" (p. 31).

See, for example, William N. Tilchin's brief dismissals of Sarah Watts, Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire (2003) and of Jim Powell, Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy (2006), Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, Summer 2007, p. 28.

James Bradley, The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009), pp. 170, 282.

Ibid., p. 300.

Ibid., p. 127.

Ibid., p. 76.

Ibid., p. 91.

Ibid., p. 154.

Ibid., p. 228.

Ibid., p. 249.

Ibid., pp. 275-276.

Ibid., pp. 304, 368.

Ibid., p. 212.

Ibid., pp. 204, 213.

Ibid., p. 172.

Ibid., p. 326.

Ibid., p. 256.

Ibid., pp. 14, 16.

Ibid., p. 14.

Ibid., p. 50.

Some of Bradley's citations---such as note 19 on p. 339, note 59 on p. 346, notes 78-79 on p. 350, note 47 on p. 361 (citing a letter of 1904 for a statement identified as having been issued in 1905), and notes 1 and 25 on pp. 363-364---would reflect badly even on an undergraduate.  More flagrantly, in chapter 2, more than twenty-five consecutive notes do not correspond to the note numbers to which they are linked.  In one instance, Bradley declares that "one historian advanced" a certain argument without identifying the historian and without providing a citation (p. 250).  Misspellings are recurrent (for example, on pp. 153, 263, 341, 344).  Quotations end without being marked as ending (for example, on pp. 45, 305).  Quotations are presented incorrectly in ways that totally distort their meanings (on p. 110, for example) or render them incoherent (as on pp. 124, 266).  Chronological sequences are mangled (for example, on pp. 189-190).  In at least one instance, Bradley completely contradicts himself, describing TR as "certain" and uncertain about Japan's future behavior (pp. 226, 228).  As with this review's enumeration of factual errors, this listing of other types and instances of sloppy work is but a sampling.

For example, Bradley, Imperial Cruise, pp. 197, 231, 238.

An enlightening (and entertaining) discussion of very bad books can be found in Tweed Roosevelt, "Really, Really Bad Books," Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, Summer 2010, pp. 10-15.

Bradley, Imperial Cruise, pp. 4-5.

Charles E. Neu, An Uncertain Friendship: Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 1906-1909 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 319.

Bradley, Imperial Cruise, ch. 9.

Ibid., ch. 13.

William N. Tilchin, "Theodore Roosevelt," in Frank W. Thackeray and John E. Findling, eds., Statesmen Who Changed the World: A Bio-Bibliographical Dictionary of Diplomacy (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), p. 487, and "Theodore Roosevelt and Foreign Policy: The Greatest of All U.S. Presidents," Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, Vol. XXX, Nos. 1 & 2, Winter-Spring 2009, p. 37.

Bradley, Imperial Cruise, p. 322.

In January 2010, this reviewer drafted a memorandum on The Imperial Cruise for electronic distribution to members of the Theodore Roosevelt Association.  Small portions of this review essay, including much of the two foregoing paragraphs, are drawn from that memorandum.

Bradley, Imperial Cruise, pp. 299-305, 332.

See William N. Tilchin, Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997).

For example, Bradley, Imperial Cruise, pp. 232, 248-250.

Ibid., p. 247.

Ibid., p. 235.

Ibid., pp. 87-88.

Ibid., esp. ch. 4.

Ibid., pp. 28-29, 87.

Ibid., p. 172.

Ibid., pp. 275-276.

Fourteen such references (on pp. 40-41) can be viewed all at once.

Bradley, Imperial Cruise, p. 331.

Ibid., p. 40.

Ibid., p. 52.

Ibid., pp. 240, 244.

Ibid., p. 291.

Ibid., pp. 287, 238.

Ibid., p. 303.

Ibid., pp. 332-333.  It would even be unfair, although far more plausible, to issue such an accusation against Woodrow Wilson.

Ibid., p. 327.

Ibid., Acknowledgments, p. 336.

As for the publisher Little, Brown and Company, the effective marketing of James Bradley's The Imperial Cruise (and of Evan Thomas's The War Lovers, for that matter) can be seen as analogous to the rampant, effective marketing with impunity of useless or harmful patent medicines and perilously unhealthful foods before Theodore Roosevelt prevailed on Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.

See William N. Tilchin, "Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and the Uneven Course of American Foreign Policy in the First Half of the Twentieth Century," Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, Vol. X, No. 4, Winter 1984, pp. 2-10, and "TR and Foreign Policy: The Greatest of All U.S. Presidents," p. 36.

Theodore Roosevelt to John Hay, July 10, 1902, in Elting E. Morison et al., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (8 vols., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951-1954), Vol. III, p. 287.