The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898
Written by Evan Thomas
Narrated by Richard Davidson
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
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.
Evan Thomas
Evan Thomas is the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers JOHN PAUL JONES, SEA OF THUNDER, and FIRST: SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at Time and Newsweek, including ten years as Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief. He appears regularly on many TV and radio talk shows. Thomas has taught at Harvard and Princeton.
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Reviews for The War Lovers
68 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book covers the lead up to and actual Spanish American War. It tells the story of America through a handful of historical figures including Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, William James, and William Randolph Hearst.
Overall I thought this was a decent book, but it did not grab me. I thought it was maybe too disjointed with so many perspectives, and it never got really in-depth with the story. It made me want to read more about these figures and the time period, but I felt like it could have given me more of the story. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a well researched study of the imperialist impulse that led to the Spanish American War and the rise of Teddy Roosevelt. I have to say for me the philosophizing got a bit deep and the narrative got lost in details that just never seemed to be justified by importance of any kind. I so,etimes felt the author had some interesting side note he wanted to work in, whether it fit or not.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Biographical portraits of 19th century figures involved in Spanish-American war outbreak; understanding American cultural outlook at the time. Connections to media influence of the modern era.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well written book I enjoyed it the whole way through. It brings into perspective that politics no matter which party never changes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A valuable work of history, and a rattling good read. Thomas puts the socio/politico/etc context of the growth of imperialism in America a bit into the background, and focusses instead on the attitudes of the men who led the march. It's fascinating to see how the popular "rush to war" developed ahead of the Spanish-American War, and it sheds a not very inspiring light in the same process around the second U.S. invasion of Iraq. Thomas's writing is brisk and dramatic, and entirely suitable to the personalities he discusses.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While there is little original research in this book it mines the secondary sources quite intelligently and its thesis --that the persons named in the title were hot for us to go to war and did all they could to see to it that we did--is amply demonstrated. This is the 4th book by Evan Thomas I have read and again he does not disappoint. The characters are not admirable but TR did have many admirable character traits and was brave to the point of foolhardiness.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book delves into the interactions of Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge vs. William Randolph Hearst and their viewpoints about the American need to go to war against Spain in the late 19th century.Factual but hard to get into.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the end of the 19th Century, men came of age who were too young to have fought in the Civil War, but not too young to have forgotten the excitement and bravado of the soldiers who did go. And they wanted their own war. The quest for independence from Spain by Cuban nationals provided the perfect opportunity for these "war lovers."This story of the Spanish American War of 1898 is told from the perspective of five men: Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, William Randolph Hearst, Thomas Brackett Reed, and William James. Teddy Roosevelt looms larger than the rest, just as he did in life. The end of the 19th Century was a time when racial theories were all the rage in Europe and in America, and wholly subscribed to by young men like Roosevelt, who thought dark-skinned peoples were inferior, and had no business holding land that Aryan stock could populate. Furthermore, like the racial movements sweeping Germany, Roosevelt saw an inherent value in proving one’s “manliness” by conquering such people, as well as by staying in the wilderness and hunting and risking one’s life for one’s country. It all helped make the race strong. Taking charge of Cuba seemed like the perfect exercise.Congressman, and later Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was Roosevelt’s best friend. And while he was not quite the “bull moose” that Roosevelt was, he too was an adherent of the concept of “manifest destiny,” the belief that the Anglo-Saxon race was rightfully destined to expand across America, and across the world. He wanted a war against Spain because it would help America become one of the big powers.William Randolph Hearst was another of the “warmongers.” He longed to be the brave and tough man he perceived Roosevelt to be, but it wasn’t in him. What he could do, though, was stir up public opinion like nobody else could, and he wanted that war in Cuba. His incitement and coverage of the war would translate into thousands of subscribers, thousands of dollars, and with luck, thousands of votes for his own bids for political power.Two players resisted the war fever. Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed comes off as a lonely hero, as he, virtually alone, tried to resist pulling the United States into a war with Spain on phony, trumped up charges. He saw “manifest destiny” and “imperialism” as racist and presumptuous, but he was far too ahead of his time. Roosevelt and Lodge, once good friends, broke off with him, and other house members started treating him as anathema. He finally gave up and resigned. Disheartened and friendless, he died not long after.William James was a psychologist and philosopher who studied the war urge among men (criticizing it even while feeling its appeal). His inclusion in this story is a bit forced – he is not really connected to the others, and it seems that the author can’t decide what to do with him.The first part of the book is mainly biographical. In the second part, the author goes into some detail about the fighting in Cuba of the Spanish-American War (allegedly for Cubans, although the white Americans disparaged them as fighters and eschewed contact with them as much as possible). This was the setting for Roosevelt’s self-described “crowded hour” when he charged Kettle Hill with his Rough Riders. After the short war in Cuba, the U.S. then moved to take the Philippines. (President McKinley, not really a war monger like the others but pressured into it, justified the battle in Southeast Asia as benevolently inspired by the desire to “educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them.” The Filipinos had long since been converted to Catholicism but nobody seemed much interested in that detail.) And of course, when it looked like the U.S. would win both battles against the crumbling Spanish Empire, second thoughts came rolling in as these Aryan Crusaders contemplated the possible burdens of dealing with all these dark people. Discussion: Thomas has two stories to tell: one is the surge of war lust and imperialist yearnings at the end of the 19th Century, and the other is a portrait of the men who were the biggest prime movers of the Era and how they supported, or strove against, the seemingly inexorable drive toward war. If your primary interest is either with Teddy Roosevelt or the Spanish-American War, you won’t be disappointed; they dominate the story. It’s a tale that’s interesting and sobering, and will give you a new perspective on who were actually the heroes and who were actually the villains at that time in American history.