Customer Reviews

Empire By Default: The Spanish-american War And The Dawn Of The American Century

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Musicant's book doesn't really bring anything new to the table. He has done little research among the original sources, and none in the Spanish, Filipino, or Cuban source material, and has written what is largely a rehash of secondary source materials. This isn't to say that it's a bad book. Musicant's grasp of things military is very sound, and this is the strength of the book. The book is well written, although there are some jarring uses of words or phrases that simly don't match the tone of the book. Overall, I came away with the feeling that I had read a detailed overview of an important event, to which the author applied little analysis or originality. In particular, the book is very weak in its portrayal of the Cubans, Filipinos, and, to a lesser degree, the Spanish. Yes, it's an American story, but that doesn't mean you leave out the other protagonists in the drama.

This book tells you everything you will ever need to know about which US soldiers and sailors fought where and with what weapons in 1898. If it has a weakness, it is in its treatment of the "why" questions. Certainly, there was strong pressure from the popular press, public opinion and several key figures in Congress and President McKinley's administration to sweep away the decrepit Spanish Empire in the Caribbean and Pacific. But it was one thing to intervene in Cuba, quite another to annex the Philippines - as was shown soon after the war when a popular revolt broke out against the US takeover. Musicant could perhaps have devoted more space to exploring the impulses behind US empire-building, and a little less to the rather confusing details of military campaigns whose outcomes were, let us face it, hardly in doubt. That said, it is still elegantly written and a good read.

Being a Civil War buff and author who is considering doing a work on the Indian Wars, I have always been fascinated by that period between the Civil War and the turn of the century.

Especially on its effect on the U.S. Army as it fought both the Indian Wars and the Spanish American War under the leadership of former Civil War Generals, and Musicant does not disappoint.

Some of the names are familiar - Nelson Miles, Wesley Merritt, Admiral (George) Dewey,and of course, the Confederate Cavalry great "Fighting Joe" Joseph Wheeler. And the not-so-well known - men such as William Rufus Shafter, the corpulent former Union officer and presumed model for "Pecos Bill", who was named commander of the expeditionary forces in Cuba and who often clashed with both his superiors in Washington, and with one certain volunteer colonel by the name of Theodore Roosevelt.

To be fair, I haven't gotten to the military operations nor the logistical problems experienced by the U.S. Army - poisoned (embalmed) beef, lack of smokeless cartridges (the antiqudated Spanish Army was more "modern" in this respect), as Musicant's account is an excellent read. But he does effectively score the two Presidents who bungled into the Cuban morass - Cleveland, definitely the Bill Clinton of his time, and William McKinley, a man of great character and virtue but hamstrung by a senile Secretary of State (William Tecumseh Sherman's brother) and politico appointees as well as his own desire to please all.
The account of the destruction of the USS Maine which finally provoked McKinley is the finest that I have read.

Musicant shows great knowledge of the Cuban situation and of the Spanish predicament. I only wish that he had covered the infamous "Virginius" affair, when the American Captain Joseph Fry, a former Confederate hero, and a score of American sailors were brutally executed by Spanish authorities after trying to smuggle guns to Cuban insurgents. This happened during the time of Grant's Presidency, and it nearly then led to war with Spain...Who knows - it might have been George Armstrong Custer leading the charge up San Juan Hill instead of Teddy.

The US wasn't spoiling for a fight with Spain in 1873 - 25 years later, it was.

I was generally pleased with this book. It is readable, reasonably detailed (in most areas), and I would recommend it to any reader with even a casual interest in this period of American history.

If I have any complaint, it is that Musicant largely fails to really "set the stage" for the Spanish-American War. His one-chapter synopsis of the United States prior to the war seems almost hasty, and one fails to really grasp the enormous impact of "Yellow Journalism" on the American public and pro-war sentiment in his narrative.

Another slight complaint: I found it necessary to have an atlas beside me in the early chapters. The inclusion of a map to orient the reader during the discussions of the campaigns of Gomez and Maceo would have been beneficial.

That having been said, this book is considered a valuable addition to my library.

Despite its length, "Empire by Default," is a very well written book that is worth reading. Musicant's account is a straightforward narrative history, but his talent as a writer keeps it from being draggy or boring. Particularly good are his accounts of the battles which have narrative excitement and give a good overall view of tactics and strategy. Musicant covers all aspects of the war, both geographically and politically. Knowing only what I had learned in school about this episode in history, I appreciated this thorough account.

Musicant has a difficult problem in writing about a two ocean war that was fought by different schedules and hampered by spotty communications between combatants. However, by breaking down the events of the war into a roughly chronological sequence, Musciant is able to produce a narrative that allows readers to see the war at a strategic and tactical level. Naturally there are some overlaps of chronology as the Battle of Manila Bay was fought and won before things really got set up around Cuba and Puerto Rico but these things do not disrupt the overall quality of his richly detailed narrative. Definitely worth a place on the shelf of anyone interested in 19th Century American History.

It takes some skill to hold a reader's attention for 658 pages. Musicant generally succeeds in his narrative of the Spanish-American war. A specialist in naval history, Musicant gives particularly close attention to the naval battles at Manila and Santiago de Cuba. His description of the gallant but hopeless attempt by the Spanish fleet to escape from Santiago is gripping. Other striking sections describe the chaos of the American embarkation at Tampa and the suffering of American troops investing Santiago. In other parts of the book, the detailed accounts of military politics and preparations may lead many readers to skip ahead. The most disappointing part of the book is the last chapter titled "Empire," a very abbreviated commentary on "the dawn of the American century." The book is reasonably well served by its few maps and its black and white photographs.

Oddly enough, I came across this book in a joint review (it may have been the New Yorker) of it & Elmore Leonard's Cuba Libre. The latter was poor, like cardboard cut-outs marching across the stage. The former, the book under review here, really brought things to life in a way you usually encounter in fiction & rarely in history. The New Yorker complained about the excessive detail ... but it was not. An understanding of the details (like the Spanish reclassifying their 50 year old ships as new Class I battleships) is critical to understanding the war. Highly recommended.

A wonderful military book. This book details the Spanish America war and its environs. it details the important figures like Mahan, Dewey, Roosevelt. It details the rise of guerrilla warfare in Cuba and the Phillipines. Nevertheless I felt it did not eleborate on the importance of the conflict internationally. It iverestimated the Americans as showsing the war to be won before it was fought. The reality of the conflict, the first defeat of a European power by a non-european power(the Russo-Japanese war was in 1905). Although one passage relates the newspaper jingoism detailing the first shots of the rugged americans against the sparkling halmets of the Spanish soldiers, it underestimates the impact of this war in which the Americans whiped european colonism off the face of the American continent.

This thing...this book of Musicant's...isn't hitting on all of its cylinders. Musicant is incapable of maintaining a coherent chronology. His source material is limited. The work is not difficult intellecutally -- in fact, the opposite -- but is made difficult by Musicant's consistently poor use of English; he so often puts adjectives in the wrong place that the reader frequently has to stop and try to figure out (or guess) what he means...the difference between