Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom

Written in the heat of 1898, this is a vivid, immediate account of the Spanish-American War from an American journalist embedded with the troops. White witnesses the clash that ended Spain's colonial empire and birthed Cuban independence, capturing a nation on the verge of imperial power. The book opens with Cuba's agony under Spanish rule: concentration camps, devastation, a people starving while Madrid extracted wealth. Then comes the USS Maine, its explosion in Havana harbor a spark that ignited war fever in America. White marches with advancing forces, describes naval battles, and paints portraits of General Shafter and Commodore Dewey as heroes of a righteous cause. Yet the book also reveals uncomfortable truths: American racism toward Cuban blacks, debates over whether the US truly fought for Cuban freedom or Caribbean dominion. This is historical journalism from the moment itself, unfiltered by a century of revision, offering both the heroics Americans believed and the complicated reality they preferred not to see.