The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, July 1970 - April, 1971 Page: 131
616 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
The Spanish-American War. By Allan Keller. (New York: Hawthorn
Books, Inc., 1969. Pp. vii + 258. Illustrations, bibliography, in-
dex. $6.95.)
Mr. Keller devotes most of this brief account of Spanish-American
War campaigns to land battles in Cuba, and has an afterthought on
the Puerto Rican campaign. The sea engagements at Manila Bay and
Santiago receive brief but adequate coverage. Though fond of cliches,
Keller often writes sprightly prose when dealing with individual en-
counters, and has an eye for human interest throughout.
Even granting the limits of his design, however, Keller offers nothing
new and much that is debatable. He greatly overrates the "yellow
press," without fully assessing why people read stories about Cuba.
Because Theodore Roosevelt left self-serving accounts and later be-
came president, he cuts a larger figure in most histories of the war
than he actually filled. This book is no exception. Keller avoids or
ignores recent scholarship that corrects several important specific
points. Spain did not capitulate to American demands in April, 1898;
Henry Cabot Lodge was not "a leading hawk of the era"; and Presi-
dent Cleveland's Cuban policy contained the threat of intervention.
Keller unhappily sees the United States as a simple adolescent, eager
merely to flex muscles. In short, he has no apparent understanding
of the complicated economic, diplomatic, and strategic forces at work
in the world of 1898. Keller cannot be held for a full diplomatic
history, but he should have approached outdated generalizations with
greater care. This is a book for the beginner, who hopefully will read
much further.
University of Texas, Austin H. WAYNE MORGAN
From Texas to Rome: A General's Journal. By Fred L. Walker. (Dal-
las: Taylor Publishing Company, 1969. Pp. xxi + 448. Illustra-
tions, maps, appendices, index. $1o.oo.)
Despite the subtitle, this work is not solely a personal journal. It is
based on the journal of the general's service with the 36th Division,
but it has been expanded somewhat in the rewriting to add portions
not normally associated with such a volume. Totally out of place
in a book of this type is a brief and rather inaccurate sketch of the
American militia from the colonial period to the present. General131
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, July 1970 - April, 1971, periodical, 1971; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101200/m1/143/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.