Author Description

Author and journalist Richard Harding Davis, one of the most popular newspaper writers and novelists at the turn of the 20th century, may well be the source of the image of the dashing war correspondent. He represented the growing power of the press as the mass media's influence was expanding, and this controversial 1898 book is an early example of the manipulative power of the press. Dispatched by William Randolph Hearst to cover the guerilla war in Cuba for Hearst's newspaper the New York Journal, Davis filed vibrant, dramatic reports that may have brought the United States into the conflict, launching the Spanish-American War. Gathered in this book, and illustrated by Frederic Remington, is Davis's account of war-torn Cuba: muscular, adventurous prose about a dangerous time and place filled with a passion that infected his readers and may have changed the course of international affairs.