The Spanish-American War 1898

Misha Glenny and guests discuss a turning point in world affairs in 1898 that left Spain greatly reduced as an imperial power and the US the owner of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, with a significant influence over the newly independent Cuba where the war broke out. The US had been eyeing Cuba for decades, waiting for the right moment and the right kind of action, and in April 1898 intervened in the long-running fighting on the island for independence from Spain. With a much stronger navy it was a very uneven battle and the US soon triumphed over Spanish forces from Manila to Santiago de Cuba. This brief war confirmed the US as a power on the world stage and made a shocked Spain turn inwards to ask what had gone wrong. Meanwhile, people in the Philippines were about to attempt a new and bloody independence fight with the US.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Frank Cogliano 6 episodes
  Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh
• Mary Vincent 4 episodes
  Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield
• Stephen Wilkinson No other episodes
  Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Buckingham

Reading list

• The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898-1923
  Sebastian Balfour (Clarendon Press, 1997) Google Books →
• Riot, Regeneration and Reaction: Spain in the Aftermath of the 1898 Disaster
  Sebastian Balfour (The Historical journal, 1995)
• Cuba: An American History
  Ada Ferrer (Scribner, 2021) Google Books →
• America, America: A New History of the New World
  Greg Grandin (Torva, 2025) Google Books →
• Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea
  Richard Kluger (Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2007) Google Books →
• President McKinley: Architect of the American Century
  Robert W. Merry (Simon & Schuster, 2017) Google Books →
• Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion
  Walter Nugent (Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2008) Google Books →
• Cuba Between Empires, 1878-1902
  Louis A. Perez Jr. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983) Google Books →
• War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895-1898
  John Lawrence Tone (University of North Carolina Press, 2006) Google Books →
• Spain, 1833-2002: People and State
  Mary Vincent (Oxford University Press, 2007) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m002tbzg

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002tbzg

Auto-category: 973.8 (United States history, 1865-1900)