The Spanish-American War has long been recognized as one of the watershed events in United States history. After a century of independence in which the nation focused its attention on the Western Hemisphere, the American people looked outward--first to Asia, but within a few years to Europe as well--on a scale unprecedented in their history. The "American Century" proclaimed by Henry Luce two generations later began not at the turn of the century, but two years earlier with the declaration of war against Spain in 1898. In that year emotion more than anything else led the United States into war for the first time. Aroused by "yellow journalism" the American people demanded war, not just to avenge the loss of the USS Maine, but also to save the downcast Cuban people from their Spanish oppressors.

The war with Spain was fought as much for the sake of others as for the United States. Americans had launched a revolution to achieve independence, defended their right to trade upon the oceans in the Quasi War with France and the War of 1812 with Britain, and humbled Mexico to achieve their claim of manifest destiny by spreading from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Both the North and the South believed the cause of the Civil War was each trying to impose its way of life on the other. Each also believed that it fought for the future of America, but the Spanish-American War was different. Americans believed they were taking up arms not for self protection or gain, but to help the Cubans. It was a . . .