Sparks Commentary: A review of “The Spanish-American War” (audiobook)

The Spanish-American War started out as one of the most popular wars in American history. It was only long after the fact that it started to become unpopular even in the United States. The press – and in particular, the newspaper editor William Randolph Hearst – clamored for war at this time. Why did the United States do so? This is a topic that this audiobook examines in some depth. Specifically, they explore the American motivations for this war with Spain.

Two motivations always come up with regards to this topic, which are racism and imperialism. These are indeed the main motivations, but there’s more to this story than just these two major words. Both words have roots going back far earlier into American history. The war was an outgrowth of “manifest destiny,” which had motivated countless United States wars against Native Americans. They had also motivated the earlier conflict with Mexico in the 1840’s. In 1898, “manifest destiny” was again used to support this new conflict, with President McKinley using these words specifically. By military measures, the war was indeed a great success for the United States. This was because the war involved relatively few American casualties, and was wrapped up within six months. It also involved territorial gains in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. And the war was also wildly popular with the American public.

William McKinley

This was the first major conflict since the Civil War where Northerners and Southerners fought alongside each other. Three decades earlier, they had made war on each other; now, they fought alongside each other. To some degree, this may have healed some of the psychological wounds of the Civil War. Many of that generation had grown up in the shadow of this Civil War, and felt robbed of the opportunity to prove their own manhood in battle. With the Spanish-American War, they now had the opportunity to prove it; so the United States military was thus inundated with volunteers. They had to turn away many volunteers, and were never forced to resort to the draft. But on the other side of the war, the conflict was a complete disaster, leaving humiliating wounds.

Theodore Roosevelt

In Cuba, there had been several wars of independence against Spain. The press seized upon Spaniard atrocities, real and imagined, to push for the war. The war was ostensibly done to support the Cuban rebels, but it soon became clear that it was done more for America’s interest than for that of Cuba. An explosion on the USS Maine lit the fuse, and the war began soon after. The conflict most famously involved some fighting in Cuba, at places like San Juan Hill. But it also involved some fighting in the distant Philippines. The Americans won quick victories over the Spaniards in the Pacific, but soon faced insurrections from the local Filipinos. The Spanish-American War ended in 1898, but the Philippine-American War only ended in 1902. This audiobook briefly covers the Philippine-American War in its closing segments. But like PBS’s documentary on this same conflict, it does not cover the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines, which lasted until 1913. This is one of my few complaints about this audiobook.

Another complaint is that they mention very little of what happened in postwar Cuba. For example, they don’t mention the 1959 communist revolution in Cuba, which brought Fidel Castro to power. This is one subject that PBS’s documentary on the Spanish-American War would cover somewhat better than does this audiobook. PBS’s documentary is also approximately half an hour longer than this audiobook. But this audiobook may be better at covering the causes of this war, and putting it into its historical context. For example, this audiobook mentions the annexation of Hawaii as a territory around this time, which became important to the Pacific theater of the Spanish-American War. Although Hawaii did not become a state until 1959, this audiobook was right to mention this, and it is significant that PBS declined to do so. Thus, the audiobook is better on this particular point.

This audiobook isn’t much longer than an hour, but it’s still a great introduction to the Spanish-American War, and is much recommended to anyone interested in this subject. I also recommend “Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War” (the aforementioned PBS documentary on this subject), which is a full two hours long.

Audiobook at Speechify.com

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