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In his book The Imperial Cruise, author James Bradley depicts the civilian and military US leaders of the late 19th and early 20th century as racists. He goes to great lengths to describe them all as "Aryans"; a term of high emotional content today. Since World War II, the term is widely associated with the "master race" nonsense promulgated by Hitler. To many, the term today is a much stronger term than it was in T. Roosevelt's time. By using the term Aryan to describe America's leaders of the early 20th Century, Bradley appears to be implying that they were all racists of the Nazi ilk. He also seems to make a point of suggesting that T. Roosevelt was likely pro-slavery. He points out (p. 36) for no apparent reason, that Roosevelt's 17th century ancestor owned slaves in the Dutch Colony of "New Amsterdam"; presumably implying that TR inherited the same inclinations of his ancestor 200 years later. (Note, that slavery in the 17th century was common in all parts of what is now the United States, including all of the European colonies as well as the areas controlled by the Native Americans (e.g., "Indians"). It was also common in Europe, Asia, and Africa.) As slaves at the time in New Amsterdam were predominately Europeans, not Africans, Bradley's point in mentioning this fact must be to depict TR as pro-slavery. (I suspect Bradley's intent was to add to his implication of TR as a racist, and not to suggest any pro-slavery leanings on TR's part.) That America and its leaders at the time would generally be considered racist in America today is not disputed. However, Bradley seems to want to emphasize that fact. In doing so, he seems to ignore anything that might mitigate his point. For example, he ignores the fact that TR was considered liberal in his time, and was, in fact, noted for his equitable treatment of blacks. For instance, T. Roosevelt was the first US President to entertain a black at the White House (Booker T. Washington, October 16, 1901.) Bradley is also a little sloppy regarding facts in general, even when the false "fact" would not appear to change the weight of his position. Others have commented (and some defended) his clearly erroneous statement (p. 130) "Almost ninety million people would view exhibits. . .(at the St. Louis World's Fair)." The issue is, the statement as printed is false, and is easily checked. That is not the only place that he wrote something clearly false. In his depiction of the US rapid expansion, he states (p. 62) "At the time (of the election of James K Polk to the presidency) the United States was a small country . . . and Mexico held what would later be Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California." This statement is false. Bradley ignores the existence of the Republic of Texas, which, at the time was an independent country that controlled all of present day Texas north of the Nueces river, as well as portions of New Mexico and Colorado. The Republic of Texas was recognized at the time by both France and England, the two most powerful nations of the era. Bradley's statement is similar to claiming that Nationalist China controlled all of China on the Asian mainland in the late 1980's, after the Peoples Republic of China was recognized by both the US and USSR. It seems to me that to have acknowledged the existence of the Republic of Texas wouldn't have weakened any of his arguments. So I have no idea why Bradley made this false statement of an easily checked fact. Bradley uses footnote citations abundantly throughout his book. Most of his references are to relatively recent documents, rather than to original sources. This type of footnoting, while acceptable for high school papers, is not generally accepted beyond the undergraduate level (and not always then). The problem with such cites is that one is citing the document's author's opinions, which may or may not reflect actual facts. This is the reason that, in serious history books, such current publications are normally reserved for a bibliography, rather than as being cited for facts. The result is that a reader of The Imperial Cruise is left to his own resources to determine whether Bradley's cited "facts" are indeed facts, or are merely personal opinions of some other writer. In this book, Bradley is obviously not an impartial reporter, but is clearly biased. He makes obvious factual errors, and does not distinguish between fact and opinion. As a result, one is left with little or no confidence in the reliability of the book's content. I suspect that while there may be some degree of truth in his general message, it is difficult to accept this book as being remotely definitive. I could never rely on this book for anything specific. So, is The Imperial Cruise history or just propaganda? At this point, I would call it unsupported biased opinion? It clearly is not history.