The Spanish-American War: Historical Overview and Select Bibliography (Naval History and Heritage Command) – https://web.archive.org/web/20141210200200/http://www.history.navy.mil/biblio/biblio7/biblio7.htm
UPDATE 1/19/2015 – URL shifted to Internet Archive version because not currently locatable on the Naval History and Heritage Command Web Site.
Representative questions that can be answered with this resource:
- How did the American blockade against Cuba operate?
- How did the United States sever telegraph links between Cuba and Spain?
- Where can I find an overview of the battle of Manila Bay?
- Where can I locate music and poetry honoring the memory of the USS Maine?
Description:
This extensive, if mostly unannotated, bibliography is a good starting point for people doing a deep dive of research into the Spanish American War/War with Spain. It is divided into the following sections:
- General Works
- Background and Preparation
- Cuban Insurrection and Relations with Spain
- USS Maine
- Voyage of USS Oregon
- The Opposing Fleets
- Operations
- Pacific Theater
- Atlantic and Caribbean Theater
- Special Subjects
- Blacks in the Navy
- Diplomatic Relations
- Intelligence
- Marines
- Medicine
- Naval Leaders and Enlisted Personnel
- The Press: Journalists, Photographers, and Artists
- Poetry and Music
- Consequences, Lessons Learned, and Evaluation of the Navy’s Performance
When annotations do exist, they range from a sentence to a short paragraph.
The beginning of the bibliography features a roughly 13 page “historical overview” essay that provides background on the war and its effect on subsequent naval preparation. If you are considering using the War with Spain as a historical setting, this is an easy place to start.
Search/Use Tip:
For works in the bibliography published earlier than 1923, try copying and pasting the title into your favorite search engine. As a result of a number of library digitization projects, many notable books published prior to 1923 are now available full text on the Internet. For an example, see:
Johnston, William A. History Up To Date: A Concise Account of the War of 1898 between the United States and Spain, Its Causes and the Treaty of Paris. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1899. 258 pp., which can be downloaded from Google Books at http://books.google.com/books/about/History_up_to_date.html?id=SvY6Cq8AIYwC.
For works still under copyright protection (usually, but not always, since 1923), try your local library. If they don’t have a volume, they may be able to get it for your through interlibrary loan.