The Martial Spirit

Replete with larger-than-life characters, the American adventure in Cuba, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands in 1898 was a watershed in the United States'' rise to world power. In this superbly written narrative of what we now call the Spanish-American War, Walter Millis analyzes the causes and motives of the time''s leading spirits -- Teddy Roosevelt, Hearst, Pulitzer, Dewey, Lodge, Hay, and others -- and recounts the ironies and grotesqueries of the conflict.