"History is written by the winners," says the timeless adage.  This is true, and it is also true that much is left unwritten by the very same.  I just finished reading a book by James Bradley titled The Imperial Cruise, which is a story about Theodore Roosevelt, a trip in 1905, and full of insight into what would shape the 20th Century in the Pacific theater.

Every nation has myths that they embrace about their goodness and virtue.  America is no exception.  While we have some people who truly live these ideals, most objective students of American imperial history know that the United States government has, at best, a mixed record in its actions abroad.  Although these are sometimes difficult to read and admit, I think we learn to be a better people and a better nation by looking at the past.

In the book, we are introduced to a Theodore Roosevelt who is substantially different than the brave Rough Rider that is lauded by pop history.  We find a sickly child who cultivates an image of himself that belies a largely patrician upbringing (remind you of any current politicians?) of luxury.  We find ourselves enmeshed in a time when the civilizing mission was to kill, breed away, and civilize the lesser races of the world, whether they be Negro, Slavic, Chink, or any other metaphor short of Teutonic.  We see a man in context, no worse than those of his time, but perhaps no better.

We see the Philippines, a nation that tried to create its own democracy, to have it crushed by Secretary (and future President) Taft, claiming that they needed to be civilized by the whites first before they could rule.  We see cynical manipulations between the finest families with sugar plantations in Hawaii and opium runners in China.  Money moves the world, and silver flows from China for these drugs.  A kingdom is lifted for popular sovereignty of the Aryan race.  It can all be researched.

Into this steps Roosevelt, with a series of deals and misunderstandings that would set the stage for so many tragedies of the 20th Century.  It was his words that encouraged Japan to assert its own Monroe Doctrine, to kick the US out of East Asia, even as he secretly gave up Korea to Japanese subjugation.  It was his insistence on belittling the Chinese as less than people, shared by many especially in California, that led to the first national boycott in Chinese history and contributed heavily to the formation of radical nationalism.  It was promises made, outside the Constitution, by someone interested in bringing the burden of civilization that would bring death and dehumanization to many people.

If you believe this story, and the evidence is compelling and overwhelming, this is the history of American intervention in the Pacific at the beginning of the century.  It is not something we would want to think, but it deserves your consideration.  In light of the imperial wars we make these days, in the name of democracy, what does it mean for self-determination?  Who gets rich and what is the purpose?  I wonder.

It's a hard thing for me sometimes because I really enjoy the image of Teddy Roosevelt that I had growing up.  I imagined a man of action, someone unafraid to lead boldly, and he was that.  But he was a man of his time as well, with the prejudices that were assigned to not just American, but all western civilization, about the nature of others.  He successfully rewrote his own history so well that we remember him today as a figure larger than life, and he was that.  Unfortunately, if Bradley is right, we might do better to lament some of his accomplishments.

The book itself is an entertaining narrative that should keep your attention.  We follow the cruise from launch in San Francisco through Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, to it's conclusion.  The main characters are Roosevelt, Secretary of War Taft (which would be the old equivalent to the Secretary of Defense), his troublesome daughter Alice, and the ambassadors and people impacted by them at many places.  It's a read that makes this history come alive, and that you can enjoy regardless of your viewpoint.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in either American history, Asian history, or who questions how wars are justified.  If you've never read history that makes you question facts that you thought you knew, start here.
 
 
I've been reading much more lately than I had been for the previous months.  I wanted to share a review.

I recently read, The Moral Underground:  How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy by Lisa Dodson.  This is a book that talks about the experiences of workers and employers in situations where the rules established by work conflict with the needs of the people employed, and how that causes different responses.  Dodson spends time looking at ways how people adapt their lives to the rules imposed by employers and discovers that many employees and managers find they have to circumvent the established order in order to meet the basic needs of low wage employees.  Whether that means more flexible scheduling, adjusting hours, or a number of other things, what the book reveals is that people struggle between a question in many cases over whether following the rules is right, or whether to take care of each other.

For those who haven't been exposed to some of the issues that face low-wage workers, it's not a bad place to start, as they have certain systemic difficulties that are often not appreciated.  When you look at people with families, this becomes especially pronounced.  A poor person chooses to work, but cannot make a wage equal to childcare costs, and this is a situation the system faces all the time.  The range of responses goes from "don't have kids" and "it isn't my responsibility" to using kin networks and finding extra support from unexpected places.  It makes you think.

Regardless of your orientation, what makes the book especially insightful is that Dodson includes people in their own words, so you can see the attitudes without too much interference from the author.  She spends much time talking about people in health-care situations such as care homes, about educational problems faced by teachers when parents have to choose between the time for working and proper child care, and about the techniques used to make the scales balance.

On a personal level, this book contributes to a growing idea that I have that there is a larger disparity for people at the bottom that our system basically ignores.  I think it is a reasonable expectation for us to have people that work, but that I begin to wonder how well a system works when someone has two full-time jobs and cannot meet their basic needs.  I have begun looking around more and see this situation in reality as well as the books that have been written.  It seems wrong to me, and a perversion of the American Dream where hard work leads to the promise of a better life.

More chilling, I think of what is happening to the next generation.  I think of children who are being raised by proxy, who have no parent to direct them through school with encouragement and motivation (either through negligence on the part of the parent, or with the best of intention but an impossible economic choice, as the result is the same) and what this will mean for our future.  With so many people who call themselves responsible waiting longer to have kids, if they have any at all, and no clear resources to guide the next generation, here is what I see:  We have a hodgepodge of resources, schools that vary greatly in quality, and no real investment in the individuals who will make up the next generation.

Yes, we can say that it is the responsibility of the parents.  That has always been the tradition, and I think it is what most people desire.  But with the reality that we had a social system based on the nuclear family, where the father worked and the mother handled the child raising duties which far exceed infancy, what will it mean for us to have such limited parenting as our economic reality is forcing on these two income families where, realistically, both parents have to work.  I cannot imagine it is a good thing, so I find myself thinking deeply about the social cost with the realization that if we do not look after our children, then the price we shall pay later shall be great indeed.

I recommend the book.  If nothing else, it will make you look at a corner of the world that you may not see every day, and make you think about some problems that are faced everyday.  I am sure people will disagree about the solutions, but having greater understanding of reality and its challenges has value for absolutely everyone.