The cruise mentioned in this book was a diplomatic cruise sent by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 to handle relationships in Asia. The author of this books attempts to look at the decisions made by Roosevelt in a manner that typical historians do not take. I could actually appreciate that, as US historians can be guilty of taking a positively biased view of historical figures. As it turns out, the author of this book was tremendously biased, and I found no neutrality or hard fact finding throughout most of the book. I was really disappointed. There were some ideas that really could have been researched more and elaborated on, such as xenophobia, that were simply passed over.

This book, in my opinion, was not particularly well-researched. The book had so much potential, especially for discussing aspects of United States history that are often whitewashed all to hell or overlooked entirely. In a time when we really need to make sure that we are covering history accurately and thoroughly, this was a letdown. If you want to read this, that is your business, but this is not one I would recommend.