Summary Of Bonnie Miller's From Liberation To Conquest

From Liberation to Conquest by Bonnie Miller looks at The War of 1898 through the scope of popular culture during the time. She took political cartoons, newspapers, dramas, and etc. to explain the role the United States media played in gaining momentum for their conquest in Cuba as well as other territories. These media outposts shaped and formed the story that was being told around the country, and gave both true and false, as well as dramatized ideals of what the war really was. Bonnie Miller, an Associate Professor of American Studies, at the University of Massachusetts Boston, earned her PH. D in History. Her areas of expertise range from Visual Culture Studies in the late 19th and early 20th century, American Imperialism, the Spanish-American

In the introduction it gives a brief overview of the war of 1898, the premise of the war and how the United States got involved. Then it goes into specific events throughout the war that both changed public opinions on the war as well as the way the media in the United States began to cover the war in newspapers, political cartoons and etc. Miller provides readers an overview of the events during this time period, through visual, and cultural aspects of the era. The book goes through very specific events during the war like the explosion of the U.S Maine, the annexation of the Hawaii; and as well as the end of the war. This format allows the book to flow seamlessly and makes it easy for readers to

One event in particular is Millers, use of the explosion of the U.S Maine which challenged the U.S sentiment and what was credible and what was not. She states, “The Maine affair poses a revealing case study in how late-nine-tenth-century visual and popular forms interacted within the culture of spectacle to consolidate patriotic sentiment by means of a powerful narrative of national disaster.” For the media this not only broadened support for the war but, broadened their scope in society enabling them to gain credibility that they never had before. As Miller states “ American culture reoriented itself…around values of pleasure, consumerism, and spectacle and this entertainment based culture collided with the politics of the Maine disaster.”Aiding in revealing the shift in ideals at the time. Because popular media and especially photojournalism functioned as the main resource people had to find about what really happened. This event not only shafted Americans perspective, but also displayed the visual representation of a shifting ideals from Cuba’s freedom to the United States imperialist conquest. Chapters three through five specifically cover the enemy’s during the The War of 1898. Miller emphasizes throughout these chapters the