Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century
by: Musicant, Ivan

Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt , 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 740 pages. Historian Musicant offers a detailed examination of the American war that catapulted the nation to imperial status. Musicant offers a portrait of a nation increasingly torn between the desire for isolation and the yearning for a place on the international stage. That conflict was at first fought out in the nation's newspapers, which managed to gradually sway public opinion toward involvements abroad. The sinking of the American warship Maine in the harbor of Havana pushed America over the edge, and McKinley was compelled to declare war on Spain. The war itself lasted less than a year and featured only a few large-scale battles, but Musicant is able to wring considerable drama from this thorough narrative of events. Clean copy.