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Splendid Liberators: Heroism, Betrayal, Resistance, and the Birth of American Empire

by Joe Jackson

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The Spanish-American War and the making of an empire

$29.47 USD
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Hardcover New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Editorial selection

    A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025

    Named a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025.

AlbakiReads Editorial

The Spanish-American War and the making of an empire

Joe Jackson frames the Spanish-American War as both a brief military campaign and the beginning of a longer, contested aftermath. The account follows the 1898 transfer of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines from Spanish rule, then turns to the resistance and resentment faced by the United States and the pull of imperial ambition. Its broad historical scope connects the conflict to later American interventions abroad, while portraits of prominent figures bring individual lives into the larger account of expansion and opposition.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in the Spanish-American War and U.S. military history
  • Readers seeking historical context for American overseas intervention
  • Readers interested in the tensions between liberation, resistance, and empire

Themes

U.S. expansion and imperial ambitionResistance to foreign ruleThe legacy of the Spanish-American WarIndividuals within wider political conflict

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A Kirkus ReviewsBest Book of 2025

This immersive epic reveals the origins of the American empire and the lives of those who promoted it and those who resisted it.

In 1898, the United States gained an empire, and--many allege--lost its soul. In just a few dramatic weeks, American forces wrested Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines from Spanish rule, but their "splendid little war" had a long and difficult aftermath, with the "liberators" facing resistance and resentment and their country tempted by imperial ambition.

In Splendid Liberators, the prizewinning historian Joe Jackson offers an epic narrative of the Spanish-American War, an overlooked conflict that nonetheless created the template for later adventures and misadventures abroad. Jackson brings our first major overseas intervention to full, teeming life with portraits of its many leading characters, such as the prophetic Cuban revolutionary Jos

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