West Virginia University Press has published Cast in Deathless Bronze: Andrew Rowan, the Spanish-American War, and the Origins of American Empire by Donald Tunnicliff Rice.
In 1898, when war with Spain seemed inevitable, Andrew Summers Rowan, an American army lieutenant from West Virginia, was sent on a secret mission to Cuba. He was to meet with General Calixto Garc�a, a leader of the Cuban rebels, in order to gather information for a U.S. invasion. Months later, after the war was fought and won, a flamboyant entrepreneur named Elbert Hubbard wrote an account of Rowan’s mission entitled “A Message to Garc�a.” It sold millions of copies, and Rowan became the equivalent of a modern-day rock star. His fame resulted in hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles, radio shows, and two movies. Even today he is held up as an exemplar of bravery and loyalty. The problem is that nothing Hubbard wrote about Rowan was true.
Donald Tunnicliff Rice reveals the facts behind the story of “A Message to Garc�a” while using Rowan’s biography as a window into the history of the Spanish-American War, the Philippine War, and the Moro Rebellion. The result is a compellingly written narrative containing many details never before published in any form, and also an accessible perspective on American diplomatic and military history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
“Rice interweaves personal and national history to outline major shifts in expansionist activity under McKinley and Roosevelt,” according to Publishers Weekly. “Readers who thrill to the particulars of life in military camps will find much to enjoy here.”
Peter Hulme, author of Cuba’s Wild East: A Literary Geography of Oriente, notes “the story of Andrew Summers Rowan is very much worth telling, and it’s difficult to imagine it being told better than in this book.”
Brady Harrison, author of Agent of Empire: William Walker and the Imperial Self in American Literature, finds that “what makes this book so fascinating is the way in which the author weaves Andrew Rowan’s personal story into the greater history of American imperial expansion under McKinley and Roosevelt. Both general readers and scholars interested in West Virginia history and, especially, in the complex history of the U.S.’s war against Spain and subsequent ascension over the Philippines will find a great deal to admire.”
Donald Tunnicliff Rice is the author of�The Agitator� and How to Publish Your Own Magazine.�He has been employed as a history textbook writer, technical editor, and advertising copywriter. His writings have appeared in periodicals ranging from theNew York Times�to the�Journal of Caribbean Literature.
Publication date: December 2016
304pp/PB�978-1-943665-43-3: $27.99/epub�978-1-943665-44-0: $27.99
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