The War With Spain in 1898

Macmillan Wars of the United States

by David F. Trask

“Remember the Maine!” The war cry spread throughout the United States after the American battleship was blown up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. Americans, already sympathetic with Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain, demanded action. Brief and decisive, not too costly, the Spanish-American War made the United States a world power. David F. Trask’s War with Spain in 1898 is a cogent political and military history of that “splendid little war.” It describes the failure of diplomacy; the state of preparedness of both sides; the battles, including those of Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders; the enlargement of conflict to rout the Spanish from Puerto Rico and the Philippines; and the misconceptions surrounding the war.

Genres: History, Military History, American History, Nonfiction

654 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1981

About the author

A specialist in American diplomatic and military history, David Frederic Trask is the former chief historian for the U.S. Army Center of Military History and former professor of history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He graduated with a degree in history from Wesleyan University in 1951, and after service in the US Army from 1952 to 1954, earned a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University in 1958.

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very detailed book about the Spanish-American war. However, I wish the author had taken as detailed a look at the Spanish army as he did with the American forces (such as how individual regiments fared).