A new history of the Spanish-American War, spanning the US adventures and misadventures in Cuba and the Philippines, and paying particular attention to unsung characters such as Frederick Funston and David Fagen.
Compelling, thoroughly researched but occasionally exhausting ... Engrossing ... Jackson has mastered the material and offers a persuasive interpretation of it. Still, though his account of the U.S. campaign in Cuba makes Splendid Liberators hard to put down at times, elsewhere it drags.
Mr. Jackson’s research is wide-ranging and impressive, but he seems determined to unearth only the worst in American behavior ... 'It’s easy for moral certitude and blindness to be one,’ Mr. Jackson writes…but his book itself is open to a similar critique.
