Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream

by Gregg Jones

“Fascinating.”— New York Times Book Review  • “Well-written.” —The Boston Globe • “Extraordinary.” —The Christian Science Monitor • “A compelling page-turner.”—Adam Hochschild

On the eve of a new century, an up-and-coming Theodore Roosevelt set out to transform the U.S. into a major world power. The Spanish-American War would forever change America's standing in global affairs, and drive the young nation into its own imperial showdown in the Philippines.

From Admiral George Dewey's legendary naval victory in Manila Bay to the Rough Riders' heroic charge up San Juan Hill, from Roosevelt's rise to the presidency to charges of U.S. military misconduct in the Philippines, Honor in the Dust brilliantly captures an era brimming with American optimism and confidence as the nation expanded its influence abroad.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Politics, Presidents, The United States Of America, Asia

464 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2012

About the author

Gregg Jones is an award-winning author, historian, investigative journalist, and foreign correspondent. He has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a fellow at the Kluge Center and Black Mountain Institute, and a Botstiber Foundation grant recipient. His latest work is a biography of Ben Kuroki, the first Japanese American combat hero of World War II. MOST HONORABLE SON: A Forgotten Hero's Fight Against Fascism and Hate During World War II will be released by Kensington Publishing on July 23, 2024. Jones is also the author of three previous nonfiction books. HONOR IN THE DUST: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and The Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream (NAL/Penguin, 2012) was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. LAST STAND AT KHE SANH: The U.S. Marines' Finest Hour in Vietnam (Da Capo/Perseus, 2014) received the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award for Distinguished Nonfiction. His first book, RED REVOLUTION: Inside the Philippine Guerrilla Movement (Westview, 1989), was praised by James Fallows in The Atlantic as a work of "prodigious, often brave reporting" and "an engrossing and highly informative book."

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The war in the Philippines is a rather neglected and forgotten history and this book rights that wrong. The catch phrase of the time was "manifest destiny" as the United States cast it's eyes on expansion, especially in the Pacific.

This history begins with the sinking of the US battleship Maine in Cuba, then a colony of the faltering empire of Spain and the orders by Teddy Roosevelt as Under-Secretary of the Navy to send troops to Havana Harbor. He did not have the authority to do this but browbeat President McKinley into action. Thus began the Spanish-American War.

We quickly move to the Philippines, also a part of the Spanish empire, and US Commodore George Dewey sails into Manila Bay on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines and destroys the Spanish Navy. Suddenly the people of the island have another master instead of an independent republic that the US had promised them. The war was no longer between Spain and the US but between the US and the people of the island who yearned for freedom. It was believed that this was "the white man's burden" as noted in a Rudyard Kipling poem

The author follows several of the military and the "insurgents" who fought through jungles, heat, and disease; this is of particular interest as we discover the devastation,tortures and deaths inflicted by US soldiers on the fighters and the innocent population.

I will go no further as this history contains so much that can't be captured in a review. This is a sad and shocking book which is recommended reading about this little-known war.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Philippine-American War – often referred to as the Philippine Insurrection – is a footnote to a footnote in American history. It is the double asterisk at the bottom of that history book you are reading. It is the unfortunate epilogue to the Spanish-American War, which is itself almost forgotten today, save for a blurry image of Teddy Roosevelt galloping up a hill, yelling Bully! and shooting Spaniards with great alacrity.

The war’s downplayed stature is not the result of any historical smallness. To the contrary, it was a protracted and bloody struggle with quantifiable geopolitical consequences. It was fought to secure an important Pacific beachhead; to spread American power and secure American might. In that way, it doesn’t fit the neat and tidy ideals of most Americans. We don’t like to think of ourselves as warmongers or war-lovers. We like to think of ourselves as peace-loving folk, who fight when we have to, whether that is for a democratic ideal (the Revolution), freedom (the Civil War), or the fate of the world (World War II, and arguably, World War I).

The Philippine War wasn’t like that. It didn’t even have the brute, geographical necessities of the Indian Wars. Instead, like the Mexican-American War (also mostly forgotten, but which halved the Mexican Empire in our favor), it was spurred by naked aggression, often masked as racial paternalism (the infamous “benevolent assimilation”).

The conflict started after the Spanish-American War, when the Philippines, formerly a Spanish colony, came into U.S. possession. Instead of letting it go free – which our dearly held principles of self-determination should have decreed – we decided to keep it, like a wallet found in a bus.

Filipino independence forces, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, declared war on the United States. In a roughly three-year war, some 20,000 Filipino combatants died. The number of civilian deaths run – by some estimates – into the hundreds of thousands. This was a counterinsurgency at its worst; if the war is remembered today, it is because of Hell Roaring Jake Smith and his oral command to Littleton Waller: “I wish you to kill and burn…The more you kill and the more you burn, the better you will please me.”

The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,000 or so islands. The Philippine-American War took place in different regions of this archipelago. There were different factions and different leaders opposing the Americans, with different ends in mind. In short, this is a complex subject, far too expansive for the 360 pages of Gregg Jones’s Honor in the Dust.

Rather than attempt to discuss every nuance of the regional politics; rather than describing the various orders of battle; rather than even charting the course of the war, Jones provides a broad (stress: broad) overview of hostilities. Roughly the first 100 pages, in fact, is a recap of the Spanish-American War. This is helpful contextually, but takes space that could otherwise be devoted to the topic at hand.

I’m of two minds of this book. On the one hand, I appreciate its readability. It is accessible to the general reader; that is, one who doesn’t read a lot about history in general or a lot about the Philippine War in particular. I read a lot about history. Arguably too much. But as to these events, I am a relative newcomer.

To that end, Honor in the Dust does a good job with the broad strokes. For the most part, the book takes a satellite-eye view of the proceedings, refusing to bog down in details. It gives you the sweep of events, and a summary of the results, without explaining at great length how things got there.

Yet it also attempts to relate the experiential aspect of the war by closely following a few of the participants, most notably the travails of U.S. Marine Tony Waller. Waller served with distinction in Egypt, in Cuba, and during the Boxer Rebellion. During the Philippine-American War, he led the ill-fated Samar Expedition, which almost left he and his men dead in the jungle. After the march, he summarily ordered the execution of nearly a dozen of his porters, accusing them of treachery. He was court-martialed for these actions, and later acquitted.

When Jones wishes to describe something, he is also able to provide a narrative jolt, as he does with his description of the “massacre” at Balangiga, where Filipino irregulars ambushed a company of American soldiers.

As church bells pealed furiously, fighters ripped off disguises, brandished weapons and charged their assigned targets. Units fanned out to attack the mess hall and kitchen, main barracks and two smaller barracks. Those concealed in the church poured into the convent in search of the three American officers.

Most of the Americans were seated at the long mess table sheltered by tents along the eastern side of the plaza, and it was there that the scores of native prisoners and laborers standing around the square converged…First Sergeant James M. Randles was among the first to fall, his skull split with an ax. Another soldier’s head was severed from his shoulders by a bolo and fell into his plate. The Americans fought back with anything they could grab – chairs, clubs, knives and forks, pots and pans. Cook Melvin D. Walls, a pitcher on the company baseball team, threw a pot of boiling water at the attackers, then continued to hold them at bay by hurling canned goods.

Passages such as these, however, are mostly few and far between.

As I mentioned above, this book is a survey. It really only scratches the surface. As a survey, it achieves its limited goals. However, I thought the perspective was almost too broad. Much of the war is dealt with in such generalities – bordering on vagueness – that I’m not certain I couldn’t have learned more by reading an encyclopedia entry.

More time could have been spent describing the battles. How they unfolded. More importantly, where they unfolded. It would have been nice to see a more rigorous and systematic approach. This might have given the book some of the authority I thought it lacked.

While skimping on the war itself, Jones provides an entire section of the war’s controversial repercussions, including Waller’s court-martial, and the congressional inquiry into U.S. atrocities. Those included water torture, summary executions, and the burning of villages. The debate over the war’s conduct pitted unlikely allies such as Nelson Miles (the famous Indian hunter) and Mark Twain (the famous humorist) against the stout imperialist and racialist Teddy Roosevelt.

Though I appreciated this section, it also failed to completely satisfy me. Mainly, it’s because these chapters deal with a post mortem on a war that I don’t think Jones fully or satisfactorily covers.

I know that there are other histories of the Philippine-American War out on bookshelves, including respected volumes by Stuart Creighton Miller and Brian Linn. I chose this one because it was the newest, on the theory that it was most up-to-date. Despite this book’s claim to reliance on “rarely used primary sources,” the text often seemed like a recapitalization of secondary sources, rather than a story firmly within the grasp of the storyteller.

In other words, the virtues of Honor in the Dust are also its detriments, and vice versa. It might be too simplistic and too general. But it is also a very good gateway to a forgotten war.

Nobody likes to read about the questionable things their country has done. This is a universal trait, not just an American one. The Japanese, for instance, still refuse to grapple with their crimes against China during World War II.

The Philippine-American War was not America’s finest hour. This, I suppose, is why it’s mostly forgotten. It doesn’t fit into our narrative. In some reader-reviews of this book, I noticed a reflexive defensiveness, with cries of “but they committed atrocities too!” It’s tough to accept that war crimes were committed – and they were, repeatedly and admittedly – and that one of the stone heads on Rushmore was cheering the whole thing on.

But if history is nothing else, it is the process of accepting ethical complexities and moral contradictions and good-intentioned failures and bad-hearted acts. The slogans and the myths, the parades and the fireworks, all have their place. So, too, does the knowledge of the blood spilled on distant lands in opaque endeavors on behalf of an entire country. I don’t think you should read this book and say America sucks! or read this book and say This book lies!.

You should read this book, think about it, and maybe read another.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gregg Jones' Honor in the Dust is a devastating chronicle of America's occupation of the Philippines, and the brutal counterinsurgency war that followed. Jones takes his time getting to the main subject, sketching the historical context in detail: there's a mini-biography of Theodore Roosevelt, the ultra-macho exemplar of American Exceptionalism who, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, did everything possible to provoke a war with Spain, along with a broader account of the Spanish-American War, when America emerged as a full-fledged empire. While America's expedition to Cuba had humanitarian pretenses, the Philippines were valued alternately for economic and military reasons (as an important base in the Pacific) - the concerns of Emiliano Aguinaldo's nationalist group, exiled to Hong Kong and returning in the midst of the conflict mattered little to American policymakers. When it became clear that, President McKinley's initial vacillation notwithstanding, the United States would annex the islands, Aguinaldo led a guerrilla rebellion against America that lasted for three years and cost thousands of lives. Jones does a good job sketching the ferocious political debates in the United States over imperialism, and whether grabbing overseas colonies benefited or hurt America; the expansionist impulse embodied by Roosevelt; the brutalities of the war, from assassinations and ambushes on one side to the mass reprisals, tortures and concentration camps on the other; and finally, investigations (instigated by Nelson Miles, career soldier and possible presidential candidate) into the atrocities that caused Americans to question their own morality - but not now-President Roosevelt, who did his best to minimize, quash and cover-up the investigations. Jones' book covers this all in bracing detail, showing the hollow conceits of Americans desiring to "civilize [Filipinos] with a Krag" and the bloody-mindedness of soldiers from "Hell-Roaring" Jake Smith, who ordered the execution of all males over ten, to Littleton Waller, a career Marine indicted for a My Lai-style atrocity. The book's only shortcoming is that Filipino perspectives are slighted, perhaps inevitable in a book by and focusing on Americans; even so, no reader will come away from this book thinking that the conquest and war were anything but a blot on America's history.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Another FirstReads win!).

"You can't put down a rebellion by throwing confetti and sprinkling perfumery," General Lloyd Wheaton offered in 1900 in rebuttal to protests from anti-imperialists over reports of abuses by U.S. troops in the Philippines. But this was not a rebellion. The American Philippine adventure turned quickly from emancipation of the islands from the Spanish to a take-over. In doing so, America crushed the Filipino independence movement and became the very evil we said we were fighting to stop.

Why? How could that happen?

First, racism. The men directing the war dehumanized the natives. In this they were not unique. It comes with war. The mother of an intelligence operative came for a visit. She saw the Filipinos as "brutal cowards" and "vermin". The fight, as she saw it, pitted "a scrubby lot of hardly human things, stunted, gnarled pigmies [sic]" against the "fine, manly fellows" of U.S. Troops.

Second, religion, of course. What better and constant justification for atrocity in history is there than the need to civilize, to Christianize another people.

Third, testosterone. That would be Theodore Roosevelt, whose need to be manly favored war. Except when it didn't, that is. He would have doubts, but late. And he'd hide them, always. One lesson of this book is that furor over atrocities fades quickly.

Honor in the Dust is a much-needed expose of this misguided imperialistic adventure. It is about soldiers and atrocities - American atrocities- in war. Yet, my sympathies were largely with the soldiers, especially the otherwise heroic ones like Tony Waller who would face a court-martial for his actions. Instead, I blame the politicians and generals who put them there, gave the orders and then acted shocked ("Gambling? In Rick's?" "Your winnings, Sir.").

The author quotes Thomas Reed, the Republican Speaker of the House, as the conscience of America in summarizing what went wrong:

They were - these Filipinos - only a short time ago our wards to whom we owed sacred duties, duties we could not abandon in the face of a censorious world without soiling our Christian faith. Now they are 'niggers' who must be punished for defending themselves. This is the history of the world with perhaps a stronger dash of hypocrisy than usual to soothe our feelings.

He almost got it.

I liked that the author doesn't slap the reader across the head with a comparison to current times and take political shots. But he doesn't have to. The lessons are palpable. The one that should be most obvious is the memory of our own independence and how much we cherish it.

(By the way, this is a great book for an examination of "waterboarding" and torture as a means of military interrogation, a practice which dates back to our own colonial experience. I'm with John McCain and Mark Twain on this, if only because you never know whether you are coercing the truth or a lie.)

[Melissa Ennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream

This is a honey of a book: brisk, entertaining, surprising, and alarmingly topical. (Clearly, the folks who brougt you Guantamamo did not remember the MAINE.) Plus you learn how we got Guantanamo in the first place.

Jones spent decades mining original sources, and there are new nuggets on every page. But his research is so cleverly integrated into his narrative that Honor in the Dust is paced like a thriller.

Jones has connected a myriad of dots:
Theodore Roosevelt
Hearst
the Navy
the Army
yachts
the Civil War (lots of veterans show up)
Iraq
Afghanistan
military justice
civilian justice
enhanced interrogation
yellow journalism
Congress
Islam
Christianity
protest movements
jingoism
labor
management
Hawaii
Cuba
Imperial Europe
Asia...

Deep-dyed history buffs will enjoy this book... but I would assign it to high-school students, too.

I won this book from GoodReads. I'm going to buy more copies for my friends and family.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another case of a misleading title. It is too bad. The author has very good points to make. The book begins with a description of the state of world affairs and devotes considerable space to the Spanish American war in Cuba before moving on to Philippine Affairs. The author gives scant attention to actions in 1898 in the Asian islands. A fair amount of space is given to the chase to capture Emiliano Aguinaldo and his lieutenants. The most notable of which is the capture of the last holdouts on Samar and the atrocities that elevated General Jacob Smith and Major Tony Waller to front page news in the United States. Of note, there is a brief mention that Smith's orders to turn the island of Samar into a howling wilderness were quoted, though amplified, from the orders given to him by General Adna Chaffee. The book fairly describes atrocities committed by Filipinos as well as those committed by Americans.

The drawback to the book was that the descriptions of Theodore Roosevelt's hand in all this were rather weak and passive. His part in the events did not live up to the title of the book and the image of him on the cover. It was effective marketing because it got me to buy a copy of the book.

Overall, I found value in reading the book and recommend it. If you are interested in the extension of the Spanish American War in the Philippines known as the Philippine Insurrection, and the escalation of atrocities on both sides of the war this is a good solid book. The politics behind the acquittal of Americans involved in the actions on Samar are also fairly described. The direct link to Roosevelt is a bit more tenuous.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gregg Jones chronicles a critical four-year period, from 1898 to 1902, in which Americans allowed their blood to grow hot over war frenzy with a European power, allowing their sense of Manifest Destiny to embrace new responsibilities toward newly liberated island peoples, and bringing their anger to a re-boil over the outrage of "inferior" peoples killing American occupying soldiers, culminating in growing skepticism of the military's approach to putting down insurrection and disdain at their own government's agents' complicity in mistreatment of indigent peoples. No wonder the title contains the phrase "the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream."

I believe this book helps to fill a gap in the contemporary American knowledge and awareness of the important events surrounding the beginning of the twentieth century. Especially now, at the almost exact century-mark since the start of World War I, it seems that there is paltry little observance of the earth-shaking and -shaping effect of that war, let alone any acknowledgement of the Spanish-American War.

It's of course the latter conflict that this book is anchored in. Maybe things went too smoothly, or at least too quickly for anyone to linger long on the consequences of winning a war. Within a matter of months after the explosion and destruction of the Battleship "Maine" in Havana harbor in 1898, we put together an army expeditionary force which led to the Spanish surrender over Cuba, while our Navy defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila harbor and opened the way for our land forces to liberate the Philippine people form Spanish domination there.

The underlying rationale for our engaging in war with Spain, besides the national anger over the alleged Spanish attack on the Maine, was our outrage toward the barbaric handling of Cuba's native population by their European masters, including killings, torture, and forced relocation of populations to concentration camps. We congratulated ourselves on winning a moral as well as a military victory. No one profited personally as much as Theodore Roosevelt, the naval undersecretary who sided with the hawks who wanted the war, and did more than any single American official in making that happen by mobilizing the United States Navy for action when his boss was out of town during a typical hot Washington D.C. summer. He would become a war hero for his actions in Cuba fighting with the 1st U.S. Volunteer Calvary.

Roosevelt would be propelled to the Vice Presidency during the next election, on a ticket with William McKinley, whose abhorrence toward going to war with Spain had led Roosevelt to accuse him of having the spine of an eclair.

Next to Roosevelt, and no doubt William Randolph Hearst, the most famous individual to emerge from the war was Admiral George Dewey. Public adulation followed his naval victory, but he also had to find a way to fight against the Spaniards within the Philippines. Toward this end, he befriended and successfully used the skills and the credentials of Emilio Aguinaldo, a freedom fighter who had been living in exile in Hong Kong since the Spanish kicked him out of the Philippines.

Jones gives a great account of yet another winner to emerge out of the conflict, the U.S. Marine Corps. The Corps had of course been around a long time, from Tripoli to Mexico City to the Civil War, but as Jones shows, they were a very small force whose existence was not assured. Jones shows how the 1st Marine Battalion led the way to the successful American landing on Cuba with its spirited efforts at Guantanamo Bay and Cuzco Well, and started to become established among military circles as an indispensable component of any future actions. The Marines' would soon receive international praise for their role in saving the foreign legations at Imperial China's Peking during the Boxer rebellion.

The trouble in the Philippines began after the Spanish agreed to a peace conference in Paris. McKinley decreed that the American military government that had been assumed to be holding the fort in Manila until a Philippine Republic was formed, would instead be the protector of American sovereignty there. Aristocratic Henry Cabot Lodge led the debate in the U.S. Senate to subsume constitutional and moral objections to Imperialism in favor of America's commercial and strategic interests in the Pacific region (p. 407 of 1121). Aguinaldo found himself frozen out of attending the negotiations in Paris. Eventually, Aguinaldo became the leader of a new anti-American insurrection in the islands; American soldiers found themselves waging war against the people they were supposed to liberate.

The Americans fought successfully against Aguinaldo's forces on Luzon, where most of the early fighting occurred. Aguinaldo narrowly avoided escape several times while his armed forces became depleted. The Americans, thinking the hostilities were coming to a close, found themselves bound up in an ugly guerrilla war. Aguinaldo revitalized the cells of the underground Katipunan which had engaged in revolution against Spain since 1896. Eventually, the Americans adopted the Spanish playbook and instituted anti-guerrilla measures that they had condemned earlier, including martial law, summary executions and relocation of civilians from villages into areas which could not support a civilian population for the purpose of depriving the insurgents of their sources of support.

The Americans adopted an interrogational method from the Spaniards, the "Water Cure", eerily similar in concept to the notorious water boarding justified by Vice President Cheney for use in the Iraq/Afghanistan war of a century later.

Thus began the crux of this book: the engagement of American military forces in what Jones titles Chapter 11, "A Nasty Little War." Just as victory was being predicted on the conventional field of battle, the reports of ambushes, raids and assassinations by the Filipino insurgents began escalating. Jones is careful not to fall into the easy trap of assigning blame to contemporary administrations for the conduct of their wars by comparing them too literally with the events of 1901-02, but the reader cannot help being reminded of eerily similar calamities associated with, especially, Vietnam and Iraq, as I confess to having done in the paragraph above. Having said that, the destruction of Philippine villages by the Army is so reminiscent of the 1960's rationale of "We burned down the village to save it."

There is also the inevitable comparison to be made between the early, optimistic war claims of benevolent change imposed on a country besieged by evil forces, only to have those promises turned hollow by the need to rain destruction on an intransigent enemy. In the case of the scope of what this book covers, there was the original McKinley promise of liberty and "benevolent assimilation" (p. 484 of 1121) for Filipinos which turned into a regimen of fear and brutality in order to try to force the recalcitrants into an appreciation as America's colonial subjects.

The mounting American casualties caused by fighting under environmental conditions far away from home against an unconventional enemy which didn't play "fairly" were successfully used as a rationale for keeping the fight up against the Filipinos by McKinley's successor, Theodore Roosevelt and his administration. There came a tipping point, however, when the American public's appetite for the war turned sour. Despite earlier efforts to keep reports from the war front optimistic in nature, soldiers and reporters were able to get the word out about a very ugly war. Numerous commissions, boards of inquiry and even courts-martial were empaneled to look into misconduct by soldiers and their superiors. What started out as accusations of institutional laxity in setting limits on the conduct of military operations became a full-fledged scandal.

President Roosevelt was very preoccupied by this issue in the first years of his administration. He ultimately gave a speech in which he publicly, vehemently vowed to uncover every instance of barbarity by American soldiers and to punish those found guilty of the articles of war. Jones makes the point that this was a hollow promise to find justice. The only cases of punishment meted out were minor. Marine General Jake (Howling Wilderness) Smith, who had ordered his subordinate Major Waller to "kill and burn" and to kill all persons old enough to bear arms, with the age limit starting at ten years (p. 723 of 1121), in the wake of a massacre of a company of American soldiers on the island of Samar, was eventually court-martialed. He was found guilty and would be admonished as punishment. Other officers received similar treatment. Major Glenn, a practitioner of the water cure, was convicted by court-martial and received a one month suspension from duty and a $50.00 fine. Another officer who used the water cure on three Filipino priests, Lt. Julien Gaujot, received three months' suspension and $150 pay forfeiture for violating the laws of war.

Despite Republican fears of losing control of the Presidency and Congress as a result of negative political fallout from the revelations of torture in the Islands, the American public voted to keep them in power. The hopes of the anti-imperialist opposition to Roosevelt's administration to vote the Republicans out of office were dashed. Part of the reason was that the fighting was effectively over by 1902, and this satisfied the public, regardless of the price in national honor that this conclusion had cost. This shifting of the country's priorities helped Roosevelt to readjust his public statements back to patriotic support of the execution of the war, in which a barbarous foe was forcefully put down and American-backed justice and fair play prevailed while the few transgressors of the rules of war on our side were effectively dealt with. As Jones notes, very little mention of the islands appeared in his autobiography. No mention appears in it about the war crimes scandal. Roosevelt went on to accomplish great achievements in business regulation and preservation of the country's natural resources, while many of the generals and other officers who engaged in the conquest of the islands proceeded with their careers.

Although the majority of Americans supported the idea of the country's emergence as a great power, they also were not eager to see any further military conquests, given the cost in lives and prestige associated with the Philippine venture. Roosevelt lost his appetite for conquering new colonies, as the main European powers were so fond of, but he maintained a build up of American military credibility with his build-up of the Navy and his building of the Panama Canal (made possible through the shady interference into Columbian sovereignty). Jones notes that Roosevelt came to appreciate the concept of Philippine independence, if only as a way to strengthen the islands as a check to what he perceived, correctly, to be the eventual Japanese threat of military dominance in the Pacific.

[Beth Cato · Rating 4 out of 5]

This easy-to-read and intelligent nonfiction work focuses on the Spanish-American War with an emphasis on American behavior and abuses in the Philippines. I have read many books on Theodore Roosevelt, and while works on his early presidency mention the public relations disaster out of the Philippines, none went into detail. This one does. It's disturbing and thought-provoking.

Jones is a Pulitzer-Prize finalist journalist with years of firsthand experience in the Philippines. The events in his book took place over a hundred years ago but remain incredibly relevant today as the United States engages in war, holds prisoners, and confronts issues of confessions arising from torture. America entered the Philippines in 1898, boasting that it would save the benighted people from Spanish abuses... and within years, ended up doing many of the same things as the Spanish. The American takeover was fairly straightforward, but when the Americans allowed the Filipinos no representation (not even in the peace talks with Spain) and treated citizens as subhuman, a brutal guerilla war began. American soldiers and marines engaged in terrible acts, including "water cure" torture. War trials took place and the media and public were appalled by what happened, but the only soldier to really be punished was a whistleblower.

Roosevelt's role in everything was complicated, as he was a very complicated man. His pushed for an American empire abroad, one with high ideals, and his administration did whatever it could to cover up what really happened in the Far East. He didn't approve of brutal tactics but also excused what happened as part of war. At the same time, he was still a progressive who wanted to see American blacks treated as full citizens; he called out his critics who railed against him about actions in the Philippines, even as the United States dealt with horrible lynchings of blacks across the South.

I found this to be a fantastic book for my research, and one I think more people should read. It's part of American history that is almost entirely ignored due to its shameful nature, and as a country, we should face what happened and actively seek to do better.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an history of America at one or her greatest and worst hours, pitting "Manifest Destiny" against the horrors of Expansionism and the virtue of disclosure against the practicality of successful management of political and military resources.

the central Character of this struggle was Theodore Roosevelt, who led the America and her "imperialists" to war in Cuba and the Phillipines. A man who was rightly accused of burying secrets in the cellar by his enemies " the Democrats and the Isolationists" whom he out foxed and out stepped with the American People. A man who was President of America ,even before he was President. A rugged man who along with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and the club of American "Wasps" took to heart the idea and goal of Taking America to the status of a World Power and accepting its duty to "Manifest Destiny".
On the basis of an often quoted, but unpublished letter from Ruiyard Kipling to Senator Lodge , Roosevelt would urge America to take upon itself the "White Mans' Burden" to help its brown skin brothers by giving them the benefit of the correct religion, supervised government and organized use of their natural resources to benefit their government, their economy and the benefit of their fellow man. Of course, fathering these uneducated chlldren of nature often required stern measures and a heavy hand to keep them on course; taking these naked and semi naked peoples on the long trip ignorance to democracy and liberty.

Roosevelt as Governor of New York pushed for war against Spain in Cuba and in the Phillipines. In both Wars, Spain, whose cruelty we advertised, was a easy target. The next target, the numerous, ignorant brown skin people were more difficult. They assumed that after we liberated them from Spain, they would no longer be just a colony and like America would self rule. Judging them to be incapable of same, we engaged in stern measures to bring them under control for their own benefit. We killed the dissenters, burned homes of possible abetters, burned crops, whipped and water boarded confessions from the natives to stop their insurrection as they did not understand our domination of them was in their best interests. We did build schools and showed them the best way to handle their resources which we sold and managed the profits created for them.

The most unfortunate were the 1,100 muslims on the island who resisted until their actions brought them to extinction.

This book offers a two sided look at the conqueror and the conquered, both have good intentions and were not able to accept the ideas of the other. Their differences they take to extremes to human behavior. The Book describes in detail a wonderful and dark part of American and World History.
It reads like good fiction, but unfortunately is true. We are the good guys and the bad guys.Read about us.

[Sir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Investigative journalists have become some of our greatest historians with their shattering of the truth, through epic works. Recent history is again disturbed by reminders of The United States of America’s own dirty history of genocide, torture, and cover-ups, past and present, by yet another worthy investigative journalist, Gregg Jones, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His triumphant historical work, Honor in the Dust, Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America’s Imperial Dream, not merely reminds us of our shameful history but makes our recent history jump out from behind the forest of achievements and setbacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Already having witnessed harsh reminders of conveniently forgotten episodes in history with the likes of Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost and To End All Wars, and Erik Larson, as he takes us In The Garden of Beasts, along with Peter Godwin’s screaming The Fear, while penetrating recent history with Zimbabwe’s current fate. Now we realize, if not already, we have not seen the full investigation of recent events in the Asian Middle East. Gregg Jones however, does remind us of this fact by taking us with amazing clarity into our forgotten history.
Written with searing documented truth, past events are brought to life with breathtaking speed and sharp unrelenting prose. This modern style of writing history is forcing the hand of all historians and the result is a very pleasing one for future generations. The true thrill of the story of us, and how we became what we are, is now open through the renewed and rewriting pens of all great historians. But I believe that it is the investigative journalists like Gregg Jones, that have forced their hands to write with clarity, truth, and the use of sharper more interesting styles and clear, accurate images, that can hold readers, all readers, not just the few that have the patience and fortitude to persevere in order to learn, enjoy the knowledge, and chew on its elements.
This is one of those must read books. If we are ever to begin to speak of ourselves with clarity, truth, honesty, debate ethics, government, peace, prosperity, wellness, we can begin here with this outstanding vision made clear through this Honor in the Dust.

[Candy Gourlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike many reviewers here, this book did not bring Afghanistan and other American adventures to mind, but a terrible sorrow for the Philippines, where I was born. I was by turns disgusted and shocked by the brutality of the forces who came to our islands and then afterwards, appalled that this terrible beginning to the 'special relationship' between our two countries has been forgotten - not just by Americans but by Filipinos. It is time to remember.

[Griffin Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well done and explained. Great book for information and it was still kept extremely interesting. Glad I read it.

[Fiyin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uggh it feels like it took longeeeerrrr...anywho, I was gonna give it 3 stars bc of all the war and needless killing but then there was a presidential scandal and for some reason those fascinate me

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, extensively researched and detailed account of a long-forgotten period of American history which was the Spanish-American war, and the United States of America's military and counter-insurgency campaign to conquer, control, and pacify the Philippines after Admiral George Dewey's legendary naval victory over the Spainards in Manilla Bay. The Spanish-American war and our occupation of the Philippines is almost never taught in schools anymore, but it's effect on the current state of the world today has been far reaching, and sadly its lessons were not learned or more likely ignored by the presidential administrations of LBJ, Nixon, George W. Bush (the son) and his co-president Dick Cheney. Future and present administrations would be wise to finally learn the lessons that William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt had to learn the hard way between 1898 and 1902. The book states on its final page that the reason the American experience in the Philippines has been largely forgotten is that Teddy Roosevelt only mentioned it nine times in his six-hundred-page autobiography despite it constantly occupying his thoughts in those four years which the author read in Teddy's private letters and public speeches. The Philippines war crime scandal that engulfed the USA in 1902 was probably the reason for that as despite Teddy's heavy involvement in it the saga that is retold here barely rates a word in TR's entire tome. That was because it was not Teddy's finest moment and ended America's dream of colonial empire at the time which the nation was largely against it. I write this as a huge Teddy Roosevelt fan, but there was a reason what happened in the Philippines after the Spanish were defeated in the islands has been forgotten and swept away. It's a warning to all that you never ignore the lessons of history.

This book was clearly started and finished throughout the disaster of the second Iraq war that began in 2003 under the Bush/Cheney co-presidency and into the first Obama term. The author wisely never mentions that conflict, or Afghanistan, or Vietnam but it is acutely obvious to the reader that what happened in the Philippines under McKinley and Teddy foreshadowed what was going to happen and did happen to the United States in Vietnam, Iraq, and finally in Afghanistan. It is stunning to see how much the Filipino guerilla counterinsurgency against us was exactly the same playbook that the Viet Cong, the NVA, used in Vietnam, and the terrorist counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan also used in those wars. That LBJ, Nixon, Bush/Cheney and their administrations either ignored this lesson from our past, or even worse didn't know about it, or maybe even more frightening to believe- were sucked into their own hubris and thought it would not happen again- is enraging. The reader simply has to transfer this story from the Philippines into Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan and it is simply the same war over and over. It's a cliche but it's a cliche because it's true- those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it, and as exhibit A- I give you LBJ and Vietnam and Bush/Cheney and Iraq and Afghanistan. Gregg Jones -the author- didn't have to say a word about those wars in this book- it's so obvious to the reader it is frightening.

The opening chapters of this book are devoted to the "Remember the Maine incident" and the Spanish American War in Cuba with Teddy's Rough riders charging up San Juan Hill which is one of my favorite moments of American History, and the account of it here is fine. It's not fantastic, it's not memorable, nor dramatic, and I would always prefer more rousing accounts of this chapter in American history, but it's serviceable, and to be blunt the author uses it just to set up the chapters in the Philippines, and the difficulties that the USA experienced there controlling the islands amidst an uprising against American rule, because, and stop me if you heard this one before- promises that were made to the Filipino's that they would be given their independence if they helped the United States defeat their Spanish colonial rulers were broken. It is often ironic that those who work so hard to overthrow tyranny and oppressive rule become what they defeated once they obtain that power themselves defeating those oppressive forces.

I am a lover of American and world military history, so the account of Admiral Dewey's defeat of the Spanish at Manilla Bay, and the Spanish in the Philippines is rousing and well done. I am a proud American, so the defeat of the Spanish in Cuba and the Philippines has always made me proud of my country. The fact is however, the USA, provoked the Filipino counterinsurgency that broke out into a horrific guerilla war that we had to fight against the Filipino rebels- because we promised them independence, and in the aftermath of the victory against Spain we became dismissive, as well as disrespectful of the Philippines population, - did not give them their Independence, and thus a rebellion against us broke out. American hubris instead of what we should be showing which is humility has always been a character flaw of our great nation, and the American government. Those that governed with humility instead of hubris like JFK, Harry Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan, Washington, Lincoln, etc. became and were legendary American leaders known for their wisdom and thoughtful leadership. Teddy Roosevelt was a magnificent American President and leader- one of my favorites, but this was not one of his great leadership moments. Instead, it was neglected by historians because of our missteps.

The author is clearly not a fan of Teddy like I am, and he focuses the majority of the book on the "water cure" torture crimes of US forces in the Philippines, and other harsh methods used to interrogate and extract information from the rebel guerilla force. The Iraq and Vietnam Wars that we experienced hang over this entire book without being mentioned, because it's the same story and the only thing that kept running through my head is how the lessons of the guerilla war we fought in the Philippines between 1898-1902 were not remembered before we went into Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Eisenhower warned JFK not to get into a war in Southeast Asia which I'm assuming because he remembered our conflict in the Philippines, but LBJ, Bush/Cheney, and so many thought they knew better- they did not- or perhaps more correctly- didn't care as long as it benefitted them.

The entire war in the Philippines, and the war crimes trial afterwards is well done, and by the end of the book, the author recounts how Teddy learned his lesson, and Roosevelt saw that the American dream of empire had ended by withdrawing American troops from Cuba immediately after peace had been restored after a revolt had broken out. Towards the end he felt that American politicians that wanted to conquer foreign countries or lands were "rabid dogs" to be dismissed. Teddy had learned the lessons of what happened in the Philippines and had also correctly predicted that the Japanese would target the Philippines because of our holdings there- which they did in World War II. Teddy understood by the end that it wasn't about being a hawk or an isolationist as the simpletons in American politics always frame it as- it was about knowing what the hell you were doing, and learning from your mistakes, so when you do wave the "big stick" you get the job done completely, achieve victory, don't get in over your head, and make sure that America's best interest are served. It was about wisdom- which Teddy always achieved through his life experiences, adventures, and his mistakes. Teddy may never have wanted to talk about it- but what he learned through his experiences with the Philippines- as difficult as they were -made him the great leader we know him as. When you admit your mistakes and learn from them- it's not a sign of weakness- it's a sign of strength in knowing who you are- and showing you are not insecure to learn from them.

The "water cure" torture episode of American history was sadly repeated decades later in future conflicts- may that never happen again. A good book, well done, not great, not the best ever, but an important part of American history that needs to be studied and thought about.

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would not have read this book if I wasn't training an academic Social Studies team...and boy would I have missed a great book.

This book is riveting, well researched, readable, and intriguing. Jones blends raw historical facts with the sensory imagery and story telling elements of a historical novel. The Philippine War is a forgotten era of American history, and Jones does a remarkable job of bringing it to light.

What I really appreciate most, however, is how balanced and fair the author is. When discussing uncomfortable aspects of American history, it is very easy for an author to rake past generations over the coals (to put it more crudely, it's easy to crap all over people who lived 100 years ago for reproachful actions). Jones does not do that. On the contrary, he presents the American expansionist fervor of 1898-1902 from all sides. He does not gloss over the blots in our history, but he does not cast unfair judgement either. I appreciate this unbiased perspective.

Hands down a 5 star history read! One of my favorites of 2021.

[Kelly Knapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This well documented and researched book is beautifully written. Teddy Roosevelt has always been one of my favorite Presidents. However, I did not realize how instramental he was in the invasion of the phillipines. In addition, I had no idea that this big strong hunter and president was actually born small, sickly, and with terrible asthma.

This books shows how he decided what type of man he wanted to be and that he set his course to make his dreams come true. But some of those dreams took the American people down a road that they did not intend to go.

Jones writes the events as the documents revealed, yet does so in a way that is both knowledgeable and enjoyable.

[KyBunnies · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was a Goodreads.com First Read contest win.

Great book about the history of 2 separate wars America fought. The Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War. This book even goes into detail about how Guantanamo was started. This author did his research very well. He included notes and a bibliography for each chapter of the book citing where he got the information. I was very impressed.



This is a great read for any one interested in war history.

The bunnies and I give this book4-Carrots.

[Jtolan1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and well-written, Honor in the Dust is a pleasure to read.

Easily accessible and engrossing, the author includes the right amount of factual background to help you understand the conflicting priorities and competitive pressures of the time. I felt I was really living this era, with an insider's access to what was happening. I also gained a depth of understanding about the colorful characters of the time, like Teddy Roosevelt.

This book is a great window on a pivotal period of U.S. history full of action and intrigue.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This absorbing and well-paced history of the US war in the Philippines contains lessons that are relevant to later US wars, particularly in Vietnam and, more recently, in Iraq.

In light of recent revelations about the use of waterboarding and other forms of torture to extract information from suspected terrorists, the historical context of the so-called water cure outlined by Jones is illuminating. Many of the controversial and brutal strategies employed by US forces in the Philippines have been used in more recent wars.

This is compelling reading.

[BJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good quick read on the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars. Jones's description of the battles in both wars are impressive. The only thing lacking in the book is that it does not go into more details.

I won this book through a GoodReads giveaway.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly suprised. With my degree and my job I read a lot of history stuff. It's been a while since I've read something like this. I think it's use of adjectives. Anyway, I liked it.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

[from my review that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, April 27, 2012].

George Santayana, the eminent Harvard philosophy professor, novelist, and poet is widely known for his prescient observation: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” However, his lesser-known, but similarly poignant quote, “Only the dead have seen the end of war” is just as applicable in Gregg Jones’ extraordinary new history of America’s campaign for conquest of the Philippines, Honor in the Dust.

Jones’s extensive research details the efforts of United States Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt to subdue the Filipinos following America’s defeat of their previous occupier, Spain, in the Spanish-American War of 1898. His account dovetails perfectly with two other recent books about contemporaneous events: Julia Flynn Siler’s "Lost Kingdom" – about American colonialism in Hawaii – and Evan Thomas’s "The War Lovers," about US adventurism in Cuba. One of Jones’s main theses is one pre-eminent world powers struggle with to this day: that the line dividing liberation and conquest of less powerful nations often becomes blurry and can move with the ease of sharpened skates on fresh ice.

Jones has devoted nearly 60 pages of footnotes to carefully and explicitly document this period of true ignominy for America, which in numerous ways acted as a template for later American incursions into Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Probably the most vivid and startling revelation Jones makes involves a controversial wartime tactic employed against Filipino combatants called the “water cure” – a form of simulated drowning similar to present-day waterboarding –
which, despite its adherents’ claims that its effects were innocuous, was vehemently denounced by detractors as torture.

The book’s central character is Theodore Roosevelt who, from before the time he had completed his education at Harvard University, had already formed the “expansionist” mindset he would maintain and advance throughout his lifetime. In a post as New York City Police Commissioner, he was intent on making his mark on the national political stage. Roosevelt’s friendship with Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was instrumental in securing him an appointment by President William McKinley as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under John D. Long.

The ambitious and energetic Roosevelt took advantage of Long’s relative
inactivity to build up naval forces and aggressively push for confrontation with Spain in the Caribbean. In Cuba, as in the Philippines, armed nationalist revolt grew out of 350 years of Spanish exploitation and misrule.

Roosevelt, haunted by the constant and embarrassing specter of his father’s having hired a substitute to serve for him in the Civil War, believed strongly that by not only advocating but participating in military action, he could reclaim his family’s sullied reputation. But Roosevelt went even farther than that. In speeches about the initial campaign in Cuba, he assailed “the unintelligent, cowardly chatter for peace at any price”, and that such beliefs would produce “a flabby, timid type of character which eats away the great fighting features of our race.” Not only that, he added that “the clamor of the peace faction has convinced me that this country needs a war.”

No one who staked a more moderate position on attacking the Spaniards was safe from Roosevelt’s taunts. President McKinley, who had distinguished himself in the Civil War – rising to the rank of Major in the process – stated “I have seen war ... I have seen the dead bodies piled up, and I do not want another.” His declaration, “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations [and] cultivate peace toward all” was met with angry dismissal from Roosevelt, who huffed that McKinley had “no more backbone than a chocolate éclair.”

The Cuban incursion, dubbed “a splendid little war” by then Secretary of State John Hay, was not an unqualified success; for instance, in capturing both San Juan Heights and El Caney, Americans lost 205 men to the Spaniards’ 215. And they suffered nearly three times the number of wounded. However, the cavalry Roosevelt had hand-picked to serve with him, the “Rough Riders,” acquitted themselves remarkably well, and their bravery was captured by numerous journalists - among them author Stephen Crane, whose novel "The Red Badge of Courage" was a stark reminder of the moral and psychological complexities of war. At the time, Crane (or "Little Stevey", as he was affectionately referred to) was corresponding for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World.

But as relatively faithful as Crane's dispatches had been, the bombasts of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst resembled a Petri dish of yellow journalism - busily "infecting Americans with war fever." Hearst, who just a few months prior to the war's commencement had audaciously inserted himself in the news by allegedly "rescuing a Cuban damsel whose imprisonment had become a cause celebre in the United States", now piloted his yacht Buccaneer to Santiago Bay, bringing with him a correspondent, Karl Decker, and a team of Edison Company cameramen to film the war for New York theatre newsreels.

The Americans emerged victorious in the Cuban theater largely under the leadership of rotund and gout-ridden General William Rufus Shafter – prevailing chiefly through timely support by the battleship Indiana, which relieved Shafter's pinned-down American ground forces and led a blockade that smashed the inferior Spanish fleet led by Admiral Pascual Cervera. With this victory, the McKinley administration, largely through the aggressiveness of the peripatetic Roosevelt and his ally in the US Senate, Henry Cabot Lodge, was led to press its advantage in securing the Philippines. The archipelago was looked upon as an important strategic outpost, and as much as wanting to "liberate" it, Roosevelt wanted to prevent it from instead becoming a British, Russian, or German protectorate.

While Roosevelt's sudden and powerful celebrity earned in Cuba was helping him bulldoze a trench leading inexorably to the Philippines, the political war for the conscience of America raged. Indianapolis attorney Albert Jeremiah Beveridge charismatically and bombastically orated in favor of America colonizing the islands. In doing so, Beveridge asserted, China would become the grand prize, with America sitting on its very doorstep. Admiral George Dewey, who had served with Admiral David Farragut, was sent to Manila Bay to pacify the existing Spanish fleet. It wasn't long before he had successfully achieved victory, for which he received salutary praise – most notably (and resoundingly) from Roosevelt.

However, in places like Massachusetts, another movement ran counter to empire-builders like Roosevelt and Beveridge. In addition to the liberal reformers known as "Mugwumps," the dissenters included some prominent Republicans, including Massachusetts Senior Senator George Frisbie Hoar. Hoar was backed by, among others, industrialist Andrew Carnegie, former President Grover Cleveland and labor leader Samuel Gompers, and sought to counter the imperialist and "unconstitutional" objectives of those intent on subjugating Filipino self-rule and independence. In their unsuccessful opposition to the 1899 Treaty of Paris, critics warned against arousing the same kind of colonial antipathy the Filipinos felt toward the Spanish. Spain balked at the US terms of surrendering the archipelago, but after promising to pay $20 million to the economically bereft Spaniards, the US government secured their reluctant signature on the treaty.

It wasn't long before tensions in Manila arose to the boiling point, and soon America had another fight on its hands. American ground troops led by, among others, battle-hardened and combative Colonel Fred Funston of Kansas and General Arthur MacArthur, were repeatedly stymied trying to decisively tamp down the forces of Filipino General Emilio Aguinaldo, who, after enduring the ravages of several months of fighting, decided to move from conventional to "guerrilla" warfare, which "placed a premium on ... familiarity with the local terrain and its population, a war without fronts or fixed positions." Though Aguinaldo was later captured, this network of small guerrilla bands persisted in frustrating American forces through intimidation of US informants, setting booby traps, and staging surprise attacks.

The arrival in Manila of veteran Marine Captain Littleton (Tony) Waller in December of 1899 was both propitious and foreboding for the American campaign. Initially, the Marines did their part in trying to fulfill President McKinley's call for "benevolent assimilation of the Filipinos," and helped them to establish local municipal governments and schools. But just as quickly, Waller and his men were re-deployed to China, where they were to join a multinational (including Japanese, Russian, German, and Welsh troops) expeditionary force in Peking to quell what was being called the "Boxer Rebellion" against foreign occupation. Waller's Marines distinguished themselves in the campaign, but this did nothing to mute the increasingly volatile political atmosphere this prolonged military involvement was causing in Washington.

The election of 1900 was looming, and mounting US casualties and inability to pacify the Filipinos emboldened McKinley's opponents, including the populist candidate for president, William Jennings Bryan. However, the soft-spoken Nebraska lawyer's oratory skill was no match for (now Vice Presidential candidate) Roosevelt's fiery and frequent rants from the campaign stump, and along with Bryan's, the anti-imperialists' opposition soon waned, while McKinley's Republican
party sped toward victory in November's elections. This emboldened Roosevelt and his allies, and through the recommendations of a Philippines field commander and Roosevelt correspondent, Major John Henry Parker, Roosevelt advocated for the justification of increasingly severe measures against Filipino soldiers by a more "strict" reading of the US military's guide to rules of war, called General Orders 100. This, in Parker's estimation, "authorized the summary execution of murderers, part-time guerrillas, highway robbers, spies, conspirators and other violent elements." As Parker asserted, the administration's current strategy of civilized warfare was "the fundamental obstruction to complete pacification."

Aside from the graphic depictions of the "water cure," which Captain Edwin Forbes Glenn was beginning to order against Filipino captives, Jones saves his most searing indictment of rogue American military actions for a series of incidents that took place in the fall of 1901. Earlier that September, William McKinley had been assassinated, Theodore Roosevelt had assumed the presidency, and by that time, American frustrations with Filipino intransigence had accelerated occurrences of, for example, the routine burning of entire villages in retaliation for Filipino attacks. Guerrilla activity subsided as a result, but still the Americans couldn't extinguish the conflict.

On September 28th, 1901, a US military contingent in the Samar Island village of Balanciga, Company C, was ambushed, resulting in 48 casualties, and had left the Balancigans a cache of weaponry – "a haul like nothing the lightly armed Samar resistance had ever seen." Roosevelt, fearing the loss of his presidency over this "massacre," ordered that the resistance be "crushed," and this resulted in the appointment of Colonel Jacob Hurd "Hell-roaring Jake" Smith to that effort. A man Jones calls "one of the most colorful scoundrels ever to wear the uniform," Smith dramatically accelerated the more severe punishments the new reading of the military guide sanctioned. This included ordering the killing of any male over 10 years old capable of carrying a weapon. Tony Waller, whose Marines had since returned to the region, was slightly more generous – establishing the age at 12 years.

On December 28, 1901, basking in an earlier victory in the Samar village of Sohoton, Waller received clearance from Smith to take 55 Marines on a trek across the island for establishing a network of US outposts. Enthusiasm led inevitably to disillusionment and concern as Waller's lack of preparation, the arrival of the rainy season, and heavy vegetation slowed the men's pace to a crawl. Starvation and disease would later befall them, and inevitably, the band could proceed no longer as a group. Captain David Dixon Porter and Waller proceeded to split their forces. Waller, fortunate to have been rescued by colleagues, traveled up the Lanang River to an outpost at Basey, and readied relief parties for his fellow Marines.

While in Basey, Waller received a call from Porter saying there were 11 treasonous Filipinos he was bringing up. Porter and fellow officer John Henry Quick had convinced Waller that the men, "bearers" and scouts, had tried to kill their Marines. Waller ordered them shot, without trial or investigation, in Basey's central plaza. News of the killings reached Washington, as well as the media, and led to increased public concern over the conduct of American troops in the Philippines which Roosevelt would finally find unavoidable to address. The Washington Post, for instance, reported that in Luzon, US Brigadier General J. Franklin Smith had forced civilians into resettlement camps. And now, beloved humorist Mark Twain was distinguishing himself as one of Roosevelt's harshest critics while continuing to "crank out pamphlets and books denouncing America's actions in the islands."

The Senate was "goaded" into holding hearings on the alleged abuses, and faced with the daily drip of disclosures of even more extensive abuses having taken place in the islands, Roosevelt and his Secretary of War, Elihu Root, were put on the defensive, struggling to provide counter-evidence that the actions of US soldiers should be seen in a "broader" context against the brutality that American soldiers had to face at the hands of "savages". As Roosevelt put it: "In a fight with savages, where the savages themselves perform deeds of hideous cruelty, a certain proportion of whites are sure to do the same thing." Finally, Secretary Root, who continued to hear reports of cruelty committed by Americans, and on March 4, 1902, Marine commander Tony Waller was court-martialed on charges of murdering Filipino prisoners, and though he would eventually escape conviction, as did Major Edwin Glenn, others such as "Jake" Smith would be convicted – though in Smith's case, even superficial punishment was not forthcoming.

Roosevelt and Root now did an about-face on the issue, no longer able to place blame for the revelations on "the fabrications of anti-imperialist zealots and opportunistic Democrats." General Adna Chaffee, the administration's point officer in the islands, proceeded to step up his revelations of even more abuses, and was now being ordered to "accelerate punishment of misconduct." General Nelson Miles traveled to the islands to gather additional evidence of military atrocities, which revealed the "water cure" being applied to Catholic priests and other non-combatants, and other actions by the torture's chief practitioners, General Robert Hughes and his deputies Glenn and Lieutenant Arthur L. Conger, Jr. But by the time Miles' report was received and released by Secretary Root, public apathy had given it all the force of a balloon landing on a pillow. Roosevelt was later easily re-elected to a second term, and went on to accomplish the establishment of an extensive national park system, as well as social and other important reforms.

Jones, in his "Epilogue," notes that other historians have given the Philippine campaign and its ramifications little attention, and that this might be understandable given "all [Roosevelt's] great achievements in the six years that followed"; but that Roosevelt himself in his memoirs mentioned the archipelago only nine times in a 600-page book and thus "helped create the void in American memories." The exhaustive amount of original research Jones has done has admirably helped to close that void. "Honor in the Dust" is a work of monumental consequence, and its important historical lessons, though they've been frequently unheeded by subsequent administrations, are in any case most worthy of remembrance.

[noreast_bookreviewsnh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the rise and fall of America’s imperial dream by Gregg Jones
.
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A very well done book detailing the simultaneous rise of the ever ambitious Teddy Roosevelt and the unstoppable powerhouse that was the United States at the turn of the 20th century. The reader learns of the backstory of the Spanish American War starting with the sinking of the USS Maine, leading to Roosevelt and his rough riders fighting gallantly on San Juan hill in Cuba liberating that nation of its former Spanish colonizers. The main focus is the debacle that was the war in the Philippines, which began with Admiral Dewey and his fleet destroying the Spanish armada and securing the islands for the United States. After this, the US liberated the islands from Spanish colonial rule by partnering with Filipino revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo, whom the US would shortly turn against as well. In the United States attempt to pacify the insurgents on the Philippines and become the new colonial power, terrible jungle warfare would ravage the US troops and lead to mass torture and killings on both sides leading to high profile trials against the US military for war crimes and would shake the nations faith in a nascent Roosevelt administration ability to deal with this crisis. The war in the Philippines lasted from 1899-1902, with over 4200 American soldiers killed, over 20,000 Filipino fighters killed and an estimated 200,000 Filipino civilians killed from violence, famine and disease. This conflict foreshadows many future wars for the US such as the jungle/insurgent style warfare in the pacific theatre(WWII) and Vietnam. Also a specific type of torture used, “the water cure”, basically the feeling of drowning and extreme swelling from being filled with water, which would become a larger issue during the war on terror in the middle east with our troops engaging in this practice. The United States would stay for about 50 years on the Philippines, which would become an important base of operations in the pacific theatre of WWII. Albeit a very dark topic, I would highly recommend this book to all who look to understand our history completely.

[Antony Vathy-Riakos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thoroughly researched and documented history of the Spanish American War and the subsequent struggle of the United States to dominate and annex the Philippine Islands. I found the revelation of American atrocities in the Philippines truly shocking and the blatant efforts of politicians, including Theodore Roosevelt, to downplay American soldiers’ misdeeds painful to read. It is no wonder eastern powers, including the former Soviet Union and China referred to the US as ‘imperialist dogs’. One can admire Roosevelt’s bravery at San Juan Hill in Cuba, but his support for the grab of the Philippine archipelago as a foothold for the US in Asia is something I can’t condone.

Gregg Jones spent several years living in the Philippines and visited the sites where the battles in his book took place. His descriptions of the summary executions of Philippine natives, the torching of native homes and villages, and the use of the ‘water cure’ (a form of torture similar to ‘water boarding’) are horripilating. Now that the US is led by someone bent on increasing the ‘empire’, this is a book worth reading as a cautionary tale.

[Caleb C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found it a very interesting book about the Spanish American War and Philippines War. Was very detailed and informative.

[Ralph Hermansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book review of "Honor in the Dust" written by Greg Jones.

I like to browse the new books in the book aisle at Costco, while my wife does her grocery shopping. When I saw that this was a book about Theodore Roosevelt, I was immediately interested in buying it. I find him to be a fascinating and inspirational character and have read other biographies about him. Although some of the book is directly related to my favorite president, the majority of the book is a detailed wartime account of the US conquest of the Philippine islands. Much of the justification for the United States to invade the Philippine Islands and wrest it from Spain was the inhumane and barbaric treatment of the islanders by the Spanish rulers. The bulk of this book tells the story of how we mishandled the relationship with the Filipinos and how they came to view us as enemy conquerors rather than liberators. Naturally, they fought for their independence with the limited resources that they had. The US soldiers had rifles and machine guns, whereas the Filipinos only had knives and their ingenuity to resist the invasion.

As the Americans tried harder and harder to stifle resistance, the Filipinos fought back using guerrilla tactics and trickery. Before long, the Americans were employing tactics as brutal as the Spanish had done before them. The war had started under Pres. McKinley, but when he was assassinated Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency and the responsibility for the war effort. Although the military tried its best to hide its scandalous behavior against the Philippine natives, the truth leaked out to the American people. President Roosevelt and the Republicans were embarrassed and defensive. One item interesting to me, was that one of their most vocal critics was Mark Twain. I did not know this before, but his satirical wit was a lethal weapon against the administration.

As I read about the needless torture and killing of a people,who were only defending their country, I was reminded of our misadventures in Vietnam, our sickening and needless experiences in Iraq, and our current hopeless experiences in Afghanistan. It seems as though the same story gets played over and over in a different geography and with a different people. We are told by our government that we want to bring freedom and democracy to a subjugated population, which yearns for it. Before long we are slaughtering these people that we set out to help. We seem to be unable to learn from history and keep repeating the same mistakes again and again.

To the author Gregg Jones, I would like to make this suggestion if you get around to revising this book someday. I realize that you did a lot of research on the individuals conducting military operations in the Philippines and wanted to tell their complete stories. In your Epilogue, you touch on the final days of each of the major combatants to complete their stories. I did not find this very interesting. To put it bluntly everyone dies eventually and it seemed as if you were grinding through your list of characters. What I was hoping to read in your epilogue, was how the relationship between America and the Philippines evolved from the close of that war to the present day. This I would've found very educational and satisfying to my curiosity. Obviously, the Filipinos and the Americans hated each other at the end of the war. Yet today, we have had many decades of far better relationships. Just how that came about would have been far more enlightening to me than a checklist of how your characters met their final ends.

To those wondering if they would like to read this book, I would say the following: I found it worthwhile because it completed a period of American history that I was unfamiliar with and it told of individuals, who I knew by name but little else. Among those individuals were Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas MacArthur who had his own story to tell during world war two in the Philippines. Another character would be Henry Cabot Lodge, whose name is very familiar but whose deeds were unknown to me. I also learned about the geography the Philippine Islands as the author moved the war story from island to island. Not only the geography was important, but the climate was more hostile than I had imagined. Our soldiers succumbed to diseases and greater number than they did the enemy's actions. Finally, I learned a not so flattering aspect of Teddy Roosevelt's reputation. Alas, he was human too.

Ralph Hermansen, review written June 9, 2012

[Ronald J Schulz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend this book to anyone who wants (and needs) a true understanding of our nation’s evolution into a global power.
They were like a couple of good old boys joshing each other. When Teddy Roosevelt asked his Attorney General about the legality of his administration’s conduct in the Philippines he replied: “No, Mr. President, if I were you I would not have any taint of legality about it.” Furthermore, he added: “… you were accused of seduction and you have conclusively proved that you were guilty of rape.”
That’s my favorite quote in the book, on page 350. It gives us the lighter note on the military horror-show our government visited upon the would-be independent nation, after saving them from the imperial clutches of Spain. Sad to say that in order to crush any ideas of independence, we used the same brutal methods of imposing our will, including “Reconcentration Camps," burning towns, shooting prisoners and those merely suspected of hostility, and the “Water Cure,” which was a version of the water boarding we later used in our war on terror. The cruel war we waged, without respect for human rights was a self-conscious continuation of the wars against Native Americans. In fact a number of senior officers had been involved in the recently completed conquest of the west and described handling ‘savage’ inferior peoples in the same disdainful way.
History repeats, especially when we sleepwalk into the same situations without a true understanding of our legacy, how we got there and where we claim to be going. We easily become hypocrites, espousing freedom for ourselves while avidly abusing the rights of others. Words like democracy become stripped of meaning when due process is ignored and authority figures are allowed free reign above the law, as our military, winked at by our civil government, was allowed to operate to crush independence movements.

[Jojo Clemente · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another interesting book on the little-told history of America's first years of colonizing the Philippines.

Told mainly from the American point of view, the book does not shy away from some of the not-so noble aspects of its efforts to "benevolently assimilate" the archipelago in the beginning of the 20th century. Realizing the potential strategic importance of the islands in the years to come, America spared little in trying to convert the Philippines and its people to what they considered a "civilized" society. This included the gruelling and often brutal suppression of the independence movement headed by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo.

While the powers-that-be in Washington may have had idealistic reasons to colonize the islands, the method by which they tried to do so left much to be desired. Ranging from torturing suspected rebel leaders and sympathizers by the "water cure" or by wiping out entire villages to flush out insurgents served to galvanize the Filipinos resolve to gain their independence. But as events unfolded , a shortage of arms by the locals and the abundance of resources by America eventually quashed any chance of achieving early independence and the rest, as they say, is history.

Gregg has given us an unabashed snapshot of the belligerent nature of the early relationship between the United States and the Philippines which is amazing considering how it eventually developed into something much better in the years after, especially during the Second World War. Any student of Philippine-American history should read this book to gain a better understanding of our rollercoaster relationship with America.

[Herb Hastings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever we Americans hear of US troops acting beastly in some faraway land, we are shocked. We ask ourselves how could the good guys have strayed? Sadly, this well written book is a testament to humanity's ability to treat our fellow man with dehumanizing cruelty and contempt, no matter their country of origin.

Jones tells the story of the US conquest of the Philippines both from the battleground and the American political arena. US forces were sent there to kick out the Spanish during the Spanish-American War. At the urging of Roosevelt and other cheerleaders for colonial expansion, we decided to keep this island nation for ourselves. The inhabitants objected and rose in rebellion. It took a long and dirty war to quiet them.

Quickly we adopted the tactics, that when used by the Spanish, U.S. leaders had deemed barbaric: summary executions, collective punishment, concentration camps, burned crop and villages and even water boarding. They called it then "The Water Cure".

This story points out how little things have changed in a hundred and ten years. When a large powerful nation decides to impose its will on a foreign land, the locals don't like it. Even if it comes wrapped in platitudes indicating that it's done only with the best of intentions.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on the U.S. war on the people of the Philippines. I appreciate the stories of the ordinary people involved as well as the still-famous war criminals like Theodore Roosevelt. It was easy to read but detailed, a rare feat. It is a amazing that in a democracy a small group of men could decide to grab an entire country and then bully everyone else into accepting and even glorifying what was clearly wrong.

My only critique is that Gregg Jones apparently did not have access to Conspiracy for Empire by Luzviminda Francisco and Jonathan Shepard Fast, which covers much of the same material but highlights the role of the Sugar Trust in pushing for a war with Spain and seizing the sugar producing islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. That book had only a small print run in the Philippines and is hard to obtain.

If you only read one history book this year, this is the one to read. Change a few characters and fast forward a century and it could be about Afghanistan.

Also, I had never put together that the first U.S. invasion of China happened at the same time the Philippine Independence Movement was being annihilated, by many of the same troops. Bet you did not know there was a first U.S. invasion of China.