Reviews for The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898

The average rating for The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-12-15 00:00:00 Zachary Larson The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 deserves 4 stars for the easy reading style and short, succinct chapters focused on a particular area. Thomas has an easy style and you can see his weekly magazine level of detail and rigor. This book gives a good overview of the times and players that lead to the Spanish-American War in 1898. You get a good, although not very deep, analysis of Teddy Roosevelt, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Speaker of the House Thomas "Czar" Reed, President McKinley, Publisher William Randolph Hearst, William James (philosopher and brother of novelist Henry) and a few other contemporaries. The main focus is Roosevelt and his deep desire to personally get to war and test his mettle. Thomas alternates between painting Roosevelt as a scheming political hack or portraying him as an unusually active patriot who just really wants to serve his country. Clearly, there is guilt about Roosevelt's father not serving in the Civil War, which has to be redeemed. Speaker Reed and President McKinley stand out to me, although it may not have been the intention of Thomas to paint them quite so positively. Reed stands against the expansion to empire, refusing to allow a larger Navy to be built because he knows Roosevelt and others would use it. I admire Reed. McKinley also comes across as more shrewd and careful than I was aware. Mostly he is known for being shot and letting Roosevelt become President. There is more to McKinley than we are commonly aware. I was somewhat disappointed in the portrait of Hearst, it seemed calculated to paint a despicable character. I wanted to see more of what was in Hearst's background. He graduated from Harvard and wasn't an idiot. Hearst's portrayal here is a bit thin, I think. We get plenty of background on Lodge, James, Roosevelt, et al but very little on Hearst. Yet he (and the other publishers like Pulitzer) are driving the nation to war. The episode with Evangelina Cisneros is certainly entertaining, personalize the story with a beautiful young thing at the mercy of the "brutish Spaniards"...and the nation goes for it hook line and sinker. Lodge is better covered and stands out as a complex individual. I was uncertain why James was included in this group but he becomes a clear conscience against empire late in the story. He wasn't crucial to this tale but interesting to learn about. The main event, the Manila and Cuban expeditions are covered all too briefly. The Battle of Manila Bay is over in a flash. The invasion of Cuba takes a little longer to tell but really gets quickly to the attacks to capture Santiago. Undeniably, Roosevelt is brave in his leadership of his regiment into battle (the second time). As Roosevelt reaches the top of the San Juan heights, he encounters 2 Spanish soldiers and draws his pistol…Shooting a fleeing man may not have been exactly the heroic moment Roosevelt had yearned for, but he had at last stalked and killed that "most dangerous game." He had proven his physical courage beyond all doubt. In the Darwinian terms he liked to employ, he had shaken off the torpor of overcivilization and tapped his innate savagery. "All men who feel any power of joy in battle," Roosevelt would later write, "know what it is like when the wolf rises in the heart." After the battle, a couple of weeks go by before the Spanish capitulate. The Americans arrange for a ceremony in Santiago to mark the capitulation. What a poignant dispatch from the Cuban rebel General Calixto Garcia to the American General Shafter, when Garcia hears that he and his men will not be allowed to the surrender ceremony in Santiago because the Americans do not trust the rebels to behave: A rumour, too absurd to be believed, ascribes the reason your measure and of the orders forbidding my army to enter Santiago, to fear of massacres and revenge against the Spaniards. Allow me, sir, to protest against even the shadow of such an idea. We are not savages, ignoring the rules of civilized warfare. We are a poor, ragged Army, as ragged and poor as the Army of your forefathers in their noble war for the Independence, but as the heroes of Saratoga and Yorktown, we respect too deeply our cause to disgrace it with barbarism and cowardice." The disdain and prejudice of the Americans against the local rebels prevailed. The roles of Social Darwinism and Manifest Destiny are not delved into enough in my opinion. But also, the idea that expansionism at this time was solely an American fault is not correct. The entire Western world was engaged in rampant empire building and the influence of this is barely mentioned until the very end. One minor sour note is that Thomas tries somehow to intimate that the response to 9/11 is similar to the warmongering leading to the Spanish-American War. Yes, a war of choice in both cases. But I would say that the Gulf of Tonkin incident leading to the Vietnam War was closer to the sinking of the Maine leading to 1898. This is a good book for a big picture overview of this era. The 1890's, like the 1790's, are an interesting yet less well known periods in U.S. history. Now I am on to more in depth study of the Philippine and Cuban excursions.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-05-17 00:00:00 Michael Laurion 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.