America's War with Spain: A Selected Bibliography (review)

Reading a bibliography is like visiting old friends. "That book I used in a paper, this book I read for a class, that book I assigned to my students." The joy of reading a bibliography is that your old friends bring new friends with them. "Why didn't I find that book for my paper? Why wasn't this book assigned for that class?" Anne Cipriano Venzon has constructed a comprehensive bibliography of the Spanish-American War, filled with friends both new and old. Her topic-based format makes the book easy to read, and her extensive and informative descriptions of the sources in her collection provide a vivid view of the various events and issues in and around the Spanish- and Filipino-American Wars.

While the scholarship on the Spanish-American War is less voluminous than that on the Civil War, or either of the world wars, Ms. Venzon shows that a strong and continuous line of writing on the War extends from 1898 to the present. Her valuable text shows the steady evolution of discussion on the topic. It also reveals depths in a war which is often considered to lack depth, possibly indicating that further and continued research, while difficult, might be rewarding and rewarded.

The only flaw in this otherwise exemplary text is the index. A number of books are cross-listed in the body of the text, as their contents cross topical boundaries. However, the index only indicates the first appearance of a book within the bibliography, making it difficult for a reader to track the cross-listed texts. While this lack is troubling, it certainly does not render this text unusable. Quite the contrary; this small flaw merely reveals how much more brightly the rest of this gem of a book shines.

This book is strongly recommended for students of the Spanish-American War, and would be a valuable addition to any Gilded Age library. It is also recommended to students of naval history, and has something to offer to military historians and diplomatic historians. The entries on specific states which contributed troops may be of interest to local historians in those states. Ms. Venzon does assume that the reader has some knowledge of the key events in the war, especially when discussing particular naval and military actions, but otherwise the collection is quite accessible.