The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War

Bradley, James. The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War. 2009. 387p. ISBN 978-0-316-00895-2. Available at 359.4 BRA on the library shelves.

By the late 1880s, the United States had declared the frontier settled, and Americans now stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Racist theories espoused by many in American leadership claimed that Native Americans had been defeated because they were uncivilized and barbarians. White Protestant Americans, they claimed, were the superior beings both physically and intellectually. They had followed the sun westward and claimed land for their superior race. When a conflict with Spain occurred, the United States stretched its imperial hands and grabbed Hawaii and the Philippines, while making Cuba and Puerto Rico de facto colonies.

Theodore Roosevelt was a proponent of these racist theories, and he used his considerable power as president of the United States to implement a secret policy of Asian domination. By 1905, the United States were involved in counterinsurgency actions in the Philippines, and were watching with envy European powers carve China. Japan had just defeated Russia, the first time a non-White power had inflicted a loss on a White Christian power. Roosevelt saw this as the perfect opportunity to crack China and allow American businesses to enter its large market.

In a series of secret meetings, Roosevelt illegally negotiated with the Japanese to provide them support to implement their own Monroe Doctrine in Asia to "promote" civilization. These meetings culminated in the annexation of Korea, which the United States had signed a treaty to protect, by the Japanese in exchange for a free hand in the Philippines and with a foothold in China. To cement all of these secret transactions, Roosevelt sent his Secretary of War, William Taft, and his loose cannon of a daughter, on a months long cruise in the Pacific. 

Roosevelt's limited and racist views did not see the long game, and the agreements he made would later directly lead to the Japanese attack in Pearl Harbor, as well as the rise of ultimate triumph of the Communists in China and of the Korean War, costing the United States blood and treasure.

Fans of history will appreciate the impact that short-sightedness, expansionism and the threat of military action had on the political trajectory of the United States.

The Horse in War

Felber, Bill. The Horse In War. Part of the Horse Library series. 2002. 64p. ISBN 978-0-7910-6651-7. Available at 357 FEL on the library shelves.

Horses have been used in war for thousands of years, but it wasn't until the Egyptians that a force of horsemen was organized to assist the army. The cavalry filled a need for speed, but also shocked the opposing forces through well organized charges. Alexander the Great deployed his cavalry to great effectiveness in his conquests, but as riders' equipment and armor became heavier, new horses capable of carrying great loads in battle were bred. The Romans raised their own cavalry, but generally it was an afterthought to the organization of the legion.

The Middle Ages saw the rise of the knight, a fully armored individual riding into battle on a noble steed, but the appearance of cannons and rifles spelled the end of medieval warfare. Cavalry came into their own to range far and wide behind enemy lines and cause chaos. In the United States, the horse was instrumental in the spread of American military influence, and though cavalry rarely fought each other head on, it remained an essential unit within an army.

The machine guns and barbed wires of the First World War spelled the end of the cavalry. Unable to ride through and accomplish the promised smashing of the enemy line, horses were instead hitched to carriages to transport ammunitions and the wounded. The Second World War saw the last vestiges of horse warfare when the Polish cavalry charged the German tanks invading in September 1939. Horses continue to play a role in military units, but this has been greatly diminished, and the cavalry now rides tanks.

Fans of military history will appreciate this concise book and the information it provides about conflicts and the evolution of the horse's role in the military.

The Sinking of the USS Maine

Crompton, Samuel Willard. The Sinking of the USS Maine: Declaring War Against Spain. 2009. 114p. ISBN 978-1-60413-049-2. Available at 973.8 CRO on the library shelves.

The battleship U.S.S. Maine was one of the first ships to join the new steel Navy. Built in 1889, the Maine was assigned to the Atlantic fleet and made several trips in the Caribbean. It would come to symbolize America’s anger at Spain.

Long a strong imperial power, Spain had colonized all of Central and South America, but beginning at the turn of the century the Spanish Empire lost its colonies one at a time until only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under their control. The Cuban people revolted in a bloody civil war that solved nothing, so a few decades later a new civil war began. This time, both sides were brutal in their attacks and their treatment of local populations. Concentration camps were erected, and many starved to death.

Seeing this misery, and agitated by a strong Cuban lobby in New York City, the United States expressed its wishes that peace would come to the island, and by an expansionist vision of US dominance of the American hemisphere. To protect American interests the Maine was dispatched to Havana.

On February 15, 1898, an explosion rocked the Maine, and the ship quickly sank, killing 260 sailors. Amid tensions between the two nations over the status of Cuba, the sinking of the Maine, attributed at the time to a Spanish mine, led down the path to war between the United States and Spain.

Over the course of the year, the United States and Spain fought a series of one-sided engagements which led to the defeat of the Spanish fleet near Santiago, Cuba, as well as of the Pacific squadron near Manilla, in the Philippines. American forces occupied Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and in the end acquired a colonial empire.

This book tells the story of the Maine, as well as the actions taken by several major historical figures such as Clara Barton and Theodore Roosevelt that led to war, then an uneasy peace with Spain, and in the process vaulted the United States to the rank of world powers to be taken seriously by the old countries in Europe.