Some Untold Darkness in our History

Just finished James Bradley’s “The Imperial Cruise”.  He is the author of “Flyboys” and “Flags of our Fathers”, so I picked up this book with high confidence of good information.

I was not expecting what I got.  “A Secret History of Empire and War” is the subtitle.  Bradley focuses on Teddy Roosevelt, President at the beginning of the 20^th century, and weaves a very compelling tale of the dark side of American history.

This is not a review, just some threads of thought that impressed me.

The language used in that time period of American History to talk about the superiority of the “white race” so eerily echoes Nazi Germany, right down to the Japanese being adopted as ‘honorary Aryans’ by both America and Germany.

But what struck me was the repeat of the Conquistadors.  Part of my cultural knowledge of the New World is how the Spanish used missionaries as the leverage and the wedge to invade and conquer the New World in the name of Jesus.  At worst, the missionaries were the agents and collaborators of the conquerers.  At best, they were ignorant stooges who were exploited for their naïve faith in ‘converting the natives’.

I got the sense of White American and European expansion into Asia going along the same lines.

Bradley is not drawing historic parallels or offering ‘alternate church history’.  The historic reference he comes back to a number of times is that of “Jesus Opium”, white missionaries fronting the importation of opium into China. Yes, it was the British who introduced opium to China, but the number of American families that built their fortune in the opium trade was eye-opening to read. 

I would not have included “Drug Boss” in Queen Victoria’s curriculum vitae before this book.

This is not the first inclination of Christianity-or the Christianity of some people-mixing into American politics with less that Jesus-like results.  Gotta go pull some more from my library.