By Kevin Seabrooke
The explosion of the USS Maine on February 15, 1898, Cuba’s Havana harbor, did not directly result in war with Spain—but with the help of the “yellow press” and public opinion it did escalate tensions between the two countries. “Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!” became a popular rallying cry, especially for those who saw an opportunity for America’s global Manifest Destiny and its arrival as a major player in world affairs. The U.S. gained control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, while solidifying its presence in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
At 816 pages, this epic work of narrative nonfiction removes the filter of American popular history—the Maine, Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, the birth of the modern Marine Corps—to also include the view through Cuban and Filipino eyes, and “to gauge the consequences and costs of America’s first major imperial adventure.”
Jackson, a former investigative reporter for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, has written eight nonfiction books, including Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary, winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award and the Society of American Historians’ Francis Parkman Prize.
Splendid Liberators: Heroism, Betrayal, Resistance, and the Birth of American Empire (Joe Jackson, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 816 pp. Oct. 14, 2025 $35 HC)
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