The United States

General works
The War and its aftermath
Further research

General works

Blum, John M. National Experience: a history of the United States. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. [IAE 74-90]

Dictionary of American History. New York: Scribner's Sons, 1976. [Pub. Cat. 80-566 and *R-USLHG IAD 76-4967] Complements the Dictionary of American biography. Contains entries on subjects considered important in American history, written by specialists in each field. Particular attention to the areas of general history, military history, science and technology, political science, and economics. Revised edition gives more attention to the arts, Native Americans, and African Americans.

Jordan, Winthrop D. United States: brief edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990. [IAE 91-2369]

Morison, Samuel Eliot. Concise History of the American Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. [IAE 77-642]

Tindall, George Brown. America: a narrative history. New York: Norton, 1996. [IAE 96-15388]

The War and its aftermath

Cosmas, Graham A. An Army for Empire: the United States army in the Spanish-American War. Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Publishing Co., 1994. [ILG 95-4690] An analysis of the U.S. Department of War's role in planning, supplying and prosecuting the war. Discusses strategic and organizational doctrines of army. Criticizes as misleading the many news accounts and memoirs which blame the Department for inefficiency. Extensive bibliography.

Dyal, Donald H. Historical Dictionary of the Spanish-American War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. [*R-USLHG ILG 96-8902] Entries on persons, places, organizations and ships involved in the war. Brief references for each entry. No illustrations. Brief chronology of events and a bibliographic essay on sources of further information.

Feuer, A. B. Spanish-American War at Sea: naval action in the Atlantic. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995. [JFE 95-18353] Describes and analyzes U.S. naval strategy and combat operations in the Atlantic. Draws heavily on memoirs, letters, and newspaper accounts to stress the experiences of U.S. participants. Appendix lists U.S. Navy ships in North Atlantic fleet. Bibliography.

Gatewood, Willard B., Jr. Black Americans and the White Man's Burden, 1898-1903. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1975). [IEC 76-137] An assessment of the response of black Americans to the Spanish-American War and its aftermath. Discusses the impact of imperial expansion on the place of African Americans in U.S. society. African Americans had doubts regarding the motives of both sides in the national debate on America's role in the world. Bibliography includes manuscripts, newspaper sources, published documents, and articles.

Gatewood, Willard B., Jr. "Smoked Yankees" and the Struggle for Empire: letters from Negro soldiers, 1898-1902. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1971. [IEC 72-508] Excerpts from 115 letters written by African American soldiers. All but five of the letters were written to black American newspapers. The letters document the diverse attitudes of the soldiers regarding imperial expansion. Selected bibliography. Bibliographic essay.

Gould, Lewis L. Spanish-American War and President McKinley. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1982. [ILG 83-401] Focuses on McKinley's role in the crisis with Spain, the war itself, and the aftermath of the Treaty of Paris. The author sees the war as a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and the development of the modern presidency. Bibliographic essay.

Jones, Virgil Carrington. Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. [ILG] History of the recruitment, training, and combat experience of the most highly-publicized unit in the U.S. Army. Many illustrations. No bibliography.

Leech, Margaret. In the Days of McKinley. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959. [*R-AN (MCKINLEY, W.] Vivid narrative history of the McKinley administration. Focuses on President McKinley, party rivalries, and inter-Cabinet disputes during the Spanish-American War period. Bibliography.

Musicant, Ivan. Empire by Default: the Spanish-American War and the dawn of the American century. New York: H. Holt, 1998. [*R-USLHG ILG 98-3599]

Roosevelt, Theodore. Rough Riders. Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1971. [ILG 74-1094] Personal narrative, first published in 1899, by a commander of the Rough Riders. Discusses recruitment of the unit and military operations in Cuba. Appendices critique quality of army supplies, government policy, and press accounts published during the war.

Tebbel, John William. America's Great Patriotic War with Spain: mixed motives, lies, and racism in Cuba and the Philippines, 1898-1915. Manchester Center, VT: Marshall Jones Co., 1996. [ILG 97-1776] Writing in a present tense, you-are-there format, the author casts doubt on American claims of idealism as a cause of the war. He asserts that racism, imperialism, and commercial interests were paramount. In describing the war he highlights U.S. bureaucratic inefficiency and military blunders. In the post-war period he stresses the brutality used to defeat the Philippine insurrection. Selective bibliography.

War of 1898, and U.S. Interventions, 1898-1934: an encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 1994. [*R-USLHG IL 94-10212] Entries on persons, places, organizations, ships, and battles of the Spanish-American War and subsequent periods. Each entry is followed by an extensive bibliography. No illustrations. Appendices contain maps, lists of conflicts in which the U.S. was involved, tables of distances related to naval operations, and a list of Spanish ships running the blockade of Cuba in 1898.

Werstein, Irving. 1898: the Spanish-American war told with pictures. New York: Macmillan, 1981. [ILG] A concise history of the war containing hundreds of illustrations.

Further research

American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature, Mary Beth Norton, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. [*RS-B 96-10301 & *R-USHLHG I 96-15585]

Beers, Henry Putney. Bibliographies in American History, 1942-1978: guide to materials for research. Woodbridge, CT: Research Publications, Inc., 1982. [*R-USLHG I 82-2289] An update to the original work published in 1942 and 1959. A bibliography of titles listing published works on American history, in addition to archival and manuscript sources. Includes federal, state, and local government publications. Also covers business, institutional, church, and personal publications.

Blazek, Ron. United States History: a selective guide to information sources. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1994. [*R-USLHG I 94-10274] In addition to printed bibliographies, this work includes online databases, CD-ROM products, and microfilm sources. Reflects a recent scholarly emphasis on social science perspectives, social history, multicultural and gender studies. It does not cover the visual arts, music, the humanities, or psychology.

Harvard Guide to American History. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1974. [Pub. Cat. 80-536 and *R-USLHG I 75-7432] Intended as a basic reference work. Contains selective bibliography of sources considered most useful to research in political, social, constitutional, and economic history. Name and subject indexes.

Merriam, Louise Alice. United States History: a bibliography of the new writings on American history. New York: Manchester University Press, 1995. [Desk-USLHG 96-4923] Selective list of writings on U.S. history published in the 1980s and early 1990s. Focuses on topics of greatest interest to U.S. historians since 1980: social history, demography, class and work relations, religion and culture, race and ethnicity studies. Strives to give casual researchers and undergraduates a starting place for more advanced studies. Does not include electronic resources.

Prucha, Francis Paul. Handbook for Research in American History: a guide to bibliographies and other reference works. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. [*R-USLHG I 94-3647] Intended as a bibliography of bibliographies, both annotated and unannotated. Includes standard reference works and new electronic technologies, with a special emphasis on recent publications and research tools. Guides researchers through sources to government documents and the National Archives.

Illustration from: Watterson, Henry. History of the Spanish-American War: embracing a complete review of our relations with Spain. New York: Werner Co., 1898. Photographic Services & Permissions