Leonard Wood

Army Chief of Staff, Medal of Honor winner, commander of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, Governor General of the Philippines, and presidential candidate, Wood was one of a select cadre of men that transformed the American military at the turn of the century, turning it into a modern fighting force and the nation into a world power.".

This is a study of the Military Government of Cuba from 1898 to 1902. Tracing and explaining the actions of General Leonard Wood's adminis tration during those years reveals how the United States Government re solved the questions of independence, strategic security, and economic inter ests in regard to Cuba. Leonard Wood, Secretary of War Elihu Root, Senator Orville H. Platt, and President William McKinley formulated and carried out policies that had a strong influence on subsequent Cuban-American relations. The broader aspects of this study, civil-military relations and American imperialism, are topics of importance to all citizens today. This is institutional and biographical history, written in the belief that a full ac count of the men, action, and circumstances will add to our understanding of the period when the United States emerged as a world power. I am indebted to Professors Gerald E. Wheeler of San Jose State College and Armin Rappaport of the University of California, San Diego, who di rected my research in the early stages, and to Professor Eric Bellquist of the University of California, Berkeley, for his criticism of the manuscript when it was in dissertation stage. To Professor Raymond J. Sontag I would like to pay special tribute for his guidance and inspiration through the years. The assistance of my mother, Mrs. Sue Hitchman, is deeply appreciated. My thanks go also to the staffs at the Library of the U. S.

Gen. Leonard Wood?s meteoric career was no fluke. The ambitious Wood (1860?1927), serving as an army physician, strategically took on tasks and assignments that led him from the pursuit of Geronimo in the deserts of the Southwest (for which he won the Medal of Honor) to chief of staff of the U.S. Army and almost to the presidency of the United States. During his rise to high office, the darker side of Wood?s personality became legend. Able administrator and sincere patriot, Wood, together with friend Theodore Roosevelt, organized the famous ?Rough Riders? during the Spanish-American War. Unfortunately, Wood possessed a consuming and obsessive ambition, as well as the willingness to advance his own interests over the ruin of others and in the face of political disapproval. Despite personal rivalries and feuds, Wood earned national prominence with his successes as a colonial administrator in Cuba and the Philippines, yet he was denied the two things he wanted most: an active role in the fighting of World War I and the presidency of the United States. ø Armed Progressive, a critical study of Wood?s quest for power and his tremendous achievements, helps us to understand this pivotal figure who played such a dominant role at the turn of the century. Jack C. Lane provides historical insight and political assessment and captures the essence of this capable, ambitious, proud, bigoted, and self-righteous man.

Cuban independence arrived formally on May 20, 1902, with the raising of the Cuban flag in Havana - a properly orchestrated and orderly inauguration of the new republic. But something had gone awry. Republican reality fell far short of the separatist ideal. In an unusually powerful book that will appeal to the general reader as well as to the specialist, Louis A. Perez, Jr., recounts the story of the critical years when Cuba won its independence from Spain only to fall in the American orbit. The last quarter of the nineteenth century found Cuba enmeshed in a complicated colonial environment, tied to the declining Spanish empire yet economically dependent on the newly ascendant United States. Rebellion against Spain had involved two generations of Cubans in major but fruitless wars. By careful examination of the social and economic changes occurring in Cuba, and of the political content of the separatist movement, the author argues that the successful insurrection of 1895-98 was not simply the last of the New World rebellions against European colonialism. It was the first of a genre that would become increasingly familiar in the twentieth century: a guerrilla war of national liberation aspiring to the transformation of society. The third player in the drama was the United States. For almost a century, the United States had pursuedthe acquistion of Cuba. Stepping in when Spain was defeated, the Americans occupied Cuba ostensibly to prepare it for independence but instead deliberately created institutions that restored the social hierarchy and guaranteed political and economic dependence. It was not the last time the U.S. intervention would thwart the Cuban revolutionary impulse.

Reproduction of the original: The Career of Leonard Wood by Joseph Hamblen Sears

In a comprehensive study of four decades of military policy, Brian McAllister Linn offers the first detailed history of the U.S. Army in Hawaii and the Philippines between 1902 and 1940. Most accounts focus on the months preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. By examining the years prior to the outbreak of war, Linn provides a new perspective on the complex evolution of events in the Pacific. Exhaustively researched, Guardians of Empire traces the development of U.S. defense policy in the region, concentrating on strategy, tactics, internal security, relations with local communities, and military technology. Linn challenges earlier studies which argue that army officers either ignored or denigrated the Japanese threat and remained unprepared for war. He demonstrates instead that from 1907 onward military commanders in both Washington and the Pacific were vividly aware of the danger, that they developed a series of plans to avert it, and that they in fact identified--even if they could not solve--many of the problems that would become tragically apparent on 7 December 1941.