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The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography

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The easy American victory over Spain in 1898 is generally considered to be a watershed event in American history. It is treated as the point where a nation content in its' isolationist introversion became an imperialist nation. In the United States, the war is considered to have been a noble venture, where the United States was "forced" to intervene and rescue the Cuban people from their vicious Spanish oppressors.
The historical reality is much more complex and does not match the general perception. In the years before the American Civil war, there were several attempts to annex Cuba, bringing it into the Union as a slave state. Unauthorized, armed expeditions to do exactly this were thwarted several times. Immediately after Abraham Lincoln was elected President, Secretary of State William Seward suggested that Lincoln provoke a war with Spain over Cuba in the hopes that the exterior crisis would keep the nation together. After the Civil war, the interest in Cuba remained. As it became clear that there would be a canal in Central America connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, there were some serious attempts to buy the island from Spain. The argument was that it was needed to control the eastern approaches to the canal.
It is also not true that before 1898 the United States was isolationist. Hawaii and Alaska were acquired in the later half of the nineteenth century and it was United States vessels that sailed to Japan, making it clear to the Japanese that they could no longer maintain their isolationist position. In the years between the Civil War and 1898, the United States was involved in many places around the world, from Korea to the Congo.
Perez understands this and uses an extensive number of quotes to justify his position that the political machine in the United States chose to intervene militarily in Cuba at the time when it seemed that the Cuban insurgency was about to defeat the Spanish forces. The Cuban liberation forces had been fighting the Spanish for three years and the Spanish forces were on the verge of collapse. It was the Cuban forces that secured the beaches where the American troops landed, allowing them to land unopposed. However, when the Spanish forces were defeated, the Cuban forces were not allowed to enter the cities and were shut out of all negotiations. The United States then took control of the island, considering the Cubans to be incapable of self-government. When the Cubans voiced objections, they were criticized for their lack of appreciation for their liberation.
This book is a revelation of how the war in 1898 really took place, it goes beyond the jingoistic hype and presents the political and social backdrop of the war as it really was. While many idealistic justifications were stated in support of the United States going to war with Spain, the reality was rooted in long-standing imperialistic ambitions in the United States. Perez uses the statements of U.S. leaders at the time to support his positions and explains how there were consequences sixty years later when the rebellion led by Fidel Castro was victorious.

In this well researched work, Mr. Perez examines the Cuban chapter of the War of 1898. (Historians now prefer 'War of 1898' instead of 'Spanish-American War' to avoid confussing the issues in Cuba and Philippeans which led to war.) He does this from a Cuba-centric point of view; a breath of fresh air for those sick of American ethonocentric views of history. Historically documents show the U.S.'s prime motive was preventing another European power from assuming colonial control of Cuba; hence having a power base close to America. History also clearly shows Cuba defeating the Spanish-- until the U.S. stormed in to 'help.'

Those who like to live with blinders over their eyes and believe legends and myths about US Glory (i.e. the Rough Riders etc.) will not like this book. However, those who want the truth to be preserved instead of propaganda will enjoy. The book can be read quickly, but offers more than enough detailed information to be used as reference in scholarly writings.

In light of a previous review I must add the book sticks to the revelant subject; not propaganda for Castro. Castro only gets mentioned on 3 of the last few pages. His revolution was against elites placed into power by the US in 1904. Perez simply restates that fact after explaing the process that turned control of Cuba to Cuba. Perez also leaves the Maine incident as mystery because IT IS A MYSTERY! There is nothing worse than a historian claiming unknowns as 100% fact-- it degrades the intellectual integerty of historial research. Perez explores each theory but leaves the final question unanswered.

This book raised the standard for research into US involvement in Cuba from 1898-1904.

This slender volume develops in greater detail Perez's thesis, advanced in his earlier work, Cuba Between Reform and Revolution,that the powers in Washington orchestrated the Spanish-American war, not to bring freedom to the Cubans, but to get control of this strategically located island. Basically, he asks "where are the Cubans in the American histories of the war?" He provides ample evidence that with rare exceptions, American historians have treated the Cuban insurrectionists as less than useless to the American effort, which although was not brilliant, was far less inept than the defensive efforts of the Spanish army.

Perez provides evidence that the insurrectos were critical to the American campaign. Although the US military leaders at the time and some American historians have wondered why the Spanish failed to have defensive positions at the most likely landing points for the Americans, Perez points out that over 1500 insurrectos had secured these areas so that the Americans could land unopposed. Further, the relief column of 3750 men which set out on a 160 mile march to reinforce the Spanish garrison at Santiago de Cuba arrived too late and too exhausted to do any good. Why? Not because of Spanish sloth, but because throughout the course of its march, it was attacked, ambushed, and harassed by a much smaller Cuban force which delayed the column for the four days that saw the US forces overrun the Spanish positions at El Caney and San Juan.
The author argues that the Cuban insurrection (which began in earnest in 1895) had already brought the Spanish army to the brink of defeat. In short, the Cubans had all but won their independence when the Americans appeared on the scene to "rescue" them.

The Cubans were excluded from any of the negotiations for the surrender of Santiago, and were prohibited from entering the city. Spanish officials were kept in office pending the final peace settlement. General Shafter baldly informed the insurrecto commander, Calixio Garcia, that the war was between the USA and the Kingdom of Spain, and the surrender was made solely to the American army.

So, according to Perez, the US went to war not to free the Cubans, but to realize ambitions going back to the days of Jefferson to gain control of the island. Reports of Spanish abuses, embellished and trumpeted by the press, outraged the public, so that by 1898, there was a popular desire to go to war. That the McKinley administration consciously but secretly manipulated this outrage to get a war on its terms,is asserted by Perez, but in my eyes, not proven. Certainly the sinking of the Maine was a god-send to the war party and made McKinley's path easier if his oft-stated reluctance to war was pure mendacity.

At any rate, our selective recall of history and memory has contributed to creating a large gulf between Americans and Cubans. Believing that we spent treasure and blood to free these people, we cannot help thinking that the tumultuous years since 1898 have been years of Cuban ingratitude. It's time that the Cuban side of the story gets told, so that Americans and Cubans can share a common history about the events of 1898. Perez provides extensive notes, but no bibliography. A methodical, bibliographic essay focusing on how American historians have treated the war would have been most helpful.

Louis Perez can hardly be faulted for not doing his reading. He leaves scarcely a stone unturned in his survey of the historiography of 1898. Yet this book falls far short of its potential.

I suspect the reason for this is both political and methodological. Perez writes from the left and he focuses on Cuba. Nothing is wrong with either, however, taken together these produce a skewed and inaccurate description of American policy in 1898. Perez criticizes his predecessors for thinking that they can write about Cuba from an American perspective. He makes the same mistake, however, in thinking that his command of Cuban history gives him some kind of special insight into McKinley's motivations.

The academic left has generally had little to offer studies of the Spanish-American War. Julius Pratt's Expansionists of 1898 blew their argument out of the water by arguing that American businesses did not want war with Spain. That hasn't kept authors like Perez from trying to cast McKinley as some kind of scheming imperialist.

One does not have to be a fan of McKinley to find this characterization inaccurate. It is underpinned by entirely circumstantial evidence. Worse, it is contradicted by McKinley's biographers, and by accounts which emphasize the extraordinary pressure that the President faced in March of 1898. Perez writes snidely and dismissively of the impact of the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine, while refusing to offer his own theory of the impact of the event. He never directly refutes the accounts emphasizing the Maine, he just makes it clear that he really dislikes them.

Perez' conclusion - which makes Fidel Castro one of the few heroes of the book - does little to redeem this overly political, snidely written, and surprisingly incomplete text.

This book is a very tough read. It is written for a highly educated audience and is hard to follow. The book is poorly written, jumps around, and is not entirely factual. There are better books on The Spanish American War than this one.

This book is a mess. In the name of revising old truisms that have been discarded a long time ago - historians have known for decades that the Spanish-American War was hardly the crusade it was pitched as - this book creates William McKinley the Extraordinary Supervillain as an explanation to US policy. There is no mention of the fact that he tried to keep the US out of war, or of the fact that the country and congress basically went crazy after a certain ship called the Maine blew up. He can't disprove theories about the Maine - he can't challenge the evidence of others - so he just writes snidely about how every other historian is a dope.

Discarding the old jingoistic Rough Riders stories (which were forgotten a long time ago) doesn't oblige one to embrace bizarre conspiracy theories. Ernest May's "Imperial Democracy", John Offner's "An Unwanted War", and David Trask's "The War of 1898" are far better at explaining this event.

For another review of this book check out Theodore Draper's article in the 1998 volume of the New York Review of Books.