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On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded in the Havana Harbor. Although there was no evidence that the Spanish were responsible, yellow newspapers such as William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal whipped Americans into frenzy by claiming that Spain's "secret infernal machine" had destroyed the battleship. Soon after, the blandly handsome and easily influenced President McKinley declared war, sending troops not only to Cuba but also to the Philippines, Spain's sprawling colony on the other side of the world.
As Evan Thomas reveals in his rip-roaring history of those times, the hunger for war had begun years earlier. Depressed by the "closing" of the Western frontier and embracing theories of social Darwinism, a group of warmongers that included a young Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge agitated loudly and incessantly that the United States exert its influence across the seas. These hawks would transform American foreign policy and, when Teddy ascended to the presidency, commence with a devastating war without reason, concocted within the White House—a bloody conflict that would come at tremendous cost.
Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, THE WAR LOVERS is the story of six men at the center of a transforming event in U.S. history: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, McKinley, William James, and Thomas Reed, and confirms once more than Evan Thomas is a popular historian of the first rank.
In his absorbing narrative of men who found duty or fulfillment or personal meaning in a war for empire—and of other men, like William James, who feared that such a quest would rot the nation's soul—Thomas has illuminated, in a compulsively readable style, a critical moment in American history. This is a book that, with its style and panache, is hard to forget and hard to put down.
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Michael Laurion
reviewed The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 on May 17, 2016
The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898
I approached this one with some reservations. Thomas is an inside-the-beltway talking head (or was), who would often show for the Saturday and Sunday political gab-fests. As I recall, I tended to like him better than most, but that's not saying much. He seemed rational. A moderate liberal was my take. Anyway, a lot of these types crank out popular historical books that are generally surface level treatments, and to some extent The War Lovers is no different. What elevates the book is that Thomas is a pretty good writer. It starts out a bit wobbly as he tries to make an Iraq comparison in the Introduction, seeing a parallel between that war and the National rush to war in the Spanish American War. I have no problems with taking Bush and crew to task, but I found the comparison both inexact and unnecessary for the book. After that, the book settles down nicely as Thomas presents the reader with several short and fascinating bios on Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, William James, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (Roosevelt's BFF), and, the intriguing and Balzac loving Speaker of the House, Thomas Reed.
Lodge, Roosevelt, and Hearst are the "War Lovers" of the title, and all five were influenced by American Civil War. Roosevelt, in particular, who wanted to make up for his father's avoidance of the war by hired proxy. The "War Lovers" would all be heavily influenced by the desire to reinvigorate the Anglo Saxon race through war. I know, now it sounds insane, but it was a genuine movement, further reinforced in its toxicity by the also popular social darwinism and eugenic theories of the time. Those with strong reservations (Reid and James) would be trampled under foot or ignored in the rush to an incredibly stupid and unnecessary war.
The book aims to track the story through these various biographies, but Teddy quickly dominates the stage, and all balance goes out the window. Hearst is the only other character that gets significant coverage, probably because he saw TR as eventual competition in the political arena. Hearst had a huge ego and huge ambition, but he never had a chance against the Roughrider, who is something of a force of nature. A force with the temperament of seven year old one (as one TR critic once remarked), but a relentless one. Thomas closes his history with a final dig at Cheney and Scooter Libby (do people even remember him?). That was also unnecessary.
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