The Spanish-American War 1898

Misha Glenny and guests discuss a turning point in world affairs in 1898 that left Spain greatly reduced as an imperial power and the US the owner of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, with a significant influence over the newly independent Cuba where the war broke out. The US had been eyeing Cuba for decades, waiting for the right moment and the right kind of action, and in April 1898 intervened in the long-running fighting on the island for independence from Spain. With a much stronger navy it was a very uneven battle and the US soon triumphed over Spanish forces from Manila to Santiago de Cuba. This brief war confirmed the US as a power on the world stage and made a shocked Spain turn inwards to ask what had gone wrong. Meanwhile, people in the Philippines were about to attempt a new and bloody independence fight with the US. With Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh Mary Vincent Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield And Stephen Wilkinson Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Buckingham Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Sebastian Balfour, The End of the Spanish Empire, 1898-1923 (Clarendon Press, 1997) Sebastian Balfour, ‘Riot, Regeneration and Reaction: Spain in the Aftermath of the 1898 Disaster’ (The Historical journal 38.2, 1995) Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History (Scribner, 2021) Greg Grandin, America, América: A New History of the New World (Torva, 2025) Richard Kluger, Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea (Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2007) Robert W. Merry, President McKinley: Architect of the American Century (Simon & Schuster, 2017) Walter Nugent, Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion (Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2008) Louis A. Pérez Jr., Cuba Between Empires, 1878–1902 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983) John Lawrence Tone, War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895-1898 (University of North Carolina Press, 2006) Mary Vincent, Spain, 1833-2002: People and State (Oxford University Press, 2007), especially chapter 3 In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Hello, Misha Glenny here. Before you listen to this episode, I wanted to share some exciting news. You can now watch this episode and all future episodes of In Our Time in full video. Just search for In Our Time on YouTube or watch episodes 28 days early by subscribing to the streaming service BBC Select in the US and Canada.

• 1:30Speaker 03

  This is In Our Time from BBC Radio 4, and this is one of more than 1,000 episodes you can find in the In Our Time archive. A reading list for this edition can be found in the episode description wherever you're listening. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello. The Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 when many Cubans were already fighting for independence from Spain, and the United States came down on those Cubans' side. With a small army but a much more powerful navy, the US soon defeated Spanish forces, won Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines from Spain, and a new Cuban Republic was born.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  And while the US emerged as a world power and Spain turned inwards to ask what had gone wrong, life in the former Spanish colonies was about to change dramatically. With me to discuss the Spanish-American War of 1898 are Frank Cogliano, Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh, Stephen Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Buckingham, and Mary Vincent, Professor of Modern European History at the University of Sheffield. Mary, let me ask you first of all, how important was empire to Spain in the 1890s?

• 2:54Speaker 04

  In the 1890s, empire is still enormously important to Spain culturally and as part of what you might call the national psyche. So even though Spain has, which has been one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen, even though Spain has lost nearly all its South American colonies by the 1820s, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, it retains Cuba, it retains Puerto Rico, and it has the Pacific Islands, next to the Philippines. That allows Spain to still think that it is an imperial power. And so the narratives that are told within Spain are very much those of imperial destiny, not necessarily imperial greatness, but the idea that Spain's destiny is to be an imperial Catholic power

• 3:36Speaker 04

  that has a particular relationship with Spanish America, which is often summed up within the notion of Hispanidad, Hispanity, which is something that is shared, language, religion, culture. And within that, particularly the remnants of the empire that they have in the 1890s, which allows Spain to frankly pretend it's still an imperial power and is still at least a middle-ranking great power. Cuba holds a particularly important place.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Such that they send in the 1890s a general there, Valeriano Vela, and he turns out to be a bit of a nasty piece of work?

• 4:13Speaker 04

  He does indeed. I know the British often think that concentration camps started in the Boer War, and it's actually, it's actually the Cuban Revolution of the 1890s. Vela replaces a man called, another general called Martínez Campos, who is keen to get some kind of negotiated settlement with the Cubans, some autonomy, some kind of home rule, and that is ruled, he fails. He's not supported by the government in Spain. They send Vela to enforce a military solution, which involves the re-concentration policy of denuding the rural areas and concentrating people in the cities.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  So you've got that civil war going on effectively in Cuba. Are the Spaniards looking at the US and what the US might be thinking about Cuba at the time?

• 4:59Speaker 04

  If you know anything about naval power, then yes, you are looking at the US and you are thinking that Spain is not going to win any conflict should that come. But that really is a limited number of elites, political elites, military elites and so on. For the the general mood in Spain is one of a jingoism that's exaggerated even in a colonial era. The United States are presented as a pig. Spain is presented as a lion. There is an absolute insistence that somehow Spain's destiny, imperial destiny, and the fact that for many people Cuba is part of Spain and there's a clear political project to have it become part of of Spain, like the Canary Islands are,

• 5:41Speaker 04

  that they don't countenance the prospect of of any defeat from the United States.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  Well, Steve Wilkinson, in that case, despite this Leonine self-image that the Spaniards had, they had already lost a great deal of their empire in South America. Chile had gone, Argentina, other states in in South and Central America. How had it held on to Cuba for so long?

• 6:03Speaker 05

  Well, the short answer is sugar and slavery. So going back to the beginning of the 19th century, Cuba became very suddenly, at the end of the 18th, early 19th century, a major sugar producer, which entailed the importation of vast numbers of African slaves. And there was a fear amongst the newly rich planter class at the time of another high tea. There was a slave rebellion in the neighboring colony of Saint-Domingue, which was owned by France. Um. That was actually the cause of the explosion of sugar in Cuba. The sugar industry in in San Domingo was decimated. A lot of the planters moved to Cuba and that's how it became this major sugar producer very quickly. But the planters who became newly

• 6:46Speaker 05

  rich from this business feared another high tea and they kind of colluded with the Spanish crown. And the Spanish crown also got into the business of providing the slaves. So there was a mutual interest here in maintaining the colony by the plantocracy. Well, it was their counterparts in South America that had actually fought against Spanish rule. And so in Cuba, that antipathy between the crown and the elites didn't exist. In fact, there was the opposite. A second reason i- is to do with the United States itself because the United States formed very early, and Frank will come in on this, I'm sure, um,

• 7:26Speaker 05

  very early, um, the desire to acquire Cuba as a state of the union. And they watched very carefully how Spain was losing power there throughout the 19th century. Quite early on, in 1823, John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State, formulated a policy of waiting for Cuba to fall into their hands once Spain became too weak. So in actual fact, subsequently administrations actually helped Spain maintain its colony, um, because they rather Spain held on to it than it fell into other European powers' hands.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  So is that part of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the John Quincy Adams?

• 8:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, Quincy Quincy Adams writes a letter in which he formulates what's known as the ripe fruit policy. Well, it's known as that in Cuba anyway. And he uses this analogy of the apple falling from a tree inevitably onto the ground by the force of gravity. There was a political gravitation that would result in Cuba falling into their hands. He promulgates that in 1823, which is the exact same year as the Monroe Doctrine. So there is. A link there.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  So, back to the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties. Can you tell us a bit about Jose Martí? Who he was and how he helped propel the Cuban independence movement?

• 8:40Speaker 05

  So Martí is a young man, and I should have said earlier that another reason for Cuba remaining a colony was not through the want of trying. The Cubans had a war of independence from eighteen sixty-eight to seventy-eight, when Jose Martí was a young man, and he became radicalized as a youth in the idea of Cuban independence, and was imprisoned for writing a seditious newspaper. And eventually was released from prison, but went to exile in Spain. And he became, he arrived in Spain exactly at the time when a particular philosophy, Kraussism, became very prominent within Spanish culture, and he was influenced very much by it.

• 9:23Speaker 05

  And he formed very early on an opinion about the nature of the kind of republic that Cuba ought to become, which would be one which would be for the good of Cubans, all Cubans, and with all Cubans, significantly meaning the African population. So Martí was the, is known as the architect of Cuban independence, and also the Cuban nationalism, this idea of Cubanidad as opposed to Hispanidad, which incorporates the African element into it. And so you have a kind of conceptualization of a biracial nation.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Just very briefly.

• 9:58Speaker 05

  Now Martí articulated that.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  What percentage of the Cuban population is of African heritage at this stage?

• 10:05Speaker 05

  At one point in the nineteenth century, it became about fifty percent. But by the time of the War of Independence of eighteen ninety-five, there'd been a very concerted effort to import a large number of immigrants from Spain. And there was a very large mixed-race population. So there was a very deep class nature to the rebellion that took place in the island in eighteen ninety-five, which combined the two classes in this conceptualization of a Cuban republic that would be for all of them, and they would have equal rights. And this is quite significant. In determining both Spanish policy towards them and American policy later.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Well, let me go on to that American policy, Frank. Steve has spoken about the idea of Cubanism as opposed to Hispanism. But he also mentioned that the United States was talking about absorbing Cuba as a state into the Union. So what are the options that the US is weighing up at this point?

• 11:07Speaker 06

  The US is considering a number of things. The president elected in eighteen ninety six, the Republican president was William McKinley. His party was broadly committed to the expansion of the United States. The United States had just completed essentially a sanctuaries of expansion across the middle of North America. And McKinley and the people around McKinley were interested in acquiring Cuba, if not acquiring Cuba, maintaining an interest in Cuba. There were American investors in Cuba, particularly in the sugar industry that Steve mentioned. And what they didn't want to see was a lot of disorder in Cuba.

• 11:47Speaker 06

  So the rebellion in Cuba that began in eighteen ninety five was quite worrying to the McKinley administration. Also, and this is going to seem counterintuitive, believed that they were anti-imperial. This is going to be very difficult for listeners to appreciate, especially over the course of what we're about to discuss. But they looked back on their own history and the history of the United States as an, you know, it was an anti-colonial country. It was founded in a rebellion against an empire. The Monroe Doctrine, as originally promulgated in eighteen twenty three, was intended to warn big, bad, old-fashioned European empires, monarchical empires like Spain,

• 12:29Speaker 06

  out of the New World, saying, okay, we as the senior republic, it's very paternalistic, but the senior republic in the hemisphere, will look after and protect the other republics. The Monroe Doctrine will become something quite different in 1898, as I'm sure we're going to discuss. So they're sympathetic to the plight of the Cuban people and the Cuban rebels. But in terms of policy terms, Misha, they do want to wait. They think if they wait, it will collapse and either fall into their hands legally or economically. And so McKinley has a kind of wait and see policy, but he's under pressure because there's some real imperialists in the country as well, active imperialists, particularly in his administration, who want to acquire Cuba.

• 13:11Speaker 05

  So notwithstanding this self-perception of the Americans as anti-imperialist, what are the decisions that, or what are the events that lead the US to decide, actually, we're going to go in?

• 13:25Speaker 06

  Well, there are American citizens in Cuba that get caught up in the Cuban rebellion that began in 1895. And there are also, there are, there's an active Cuban community in the United States that is agitating on behalf of the Cuban rebels. So there's a great deal of sympathy for the Cuban rebels in the United States. And when those American citizens are threatened, and there are a couple of incidents where one or two of them are killed, the McKinley administration in January of 1898 dispatches one of its new battleships, the USS Maine, to Havana to, as a kind of statement of intent and to protect American interests on the island. The Maine explodes on February 15th, 1898.

• 14:10Speaker 06

  McKinley, President McKinley is actually quite cautious at this point. He wants to undertake a review. The media doesn't. And so there are calls for the United States to enter the war. Spain has no motive to blow up the USS Maine. However, an early report suggests that the ship was destroyed by a Spanish mine. Subsequent research suggests it was probably an explosion on the ship that destroyed it. But 260 American sailors were killed, and that really ramps things up. And there's a call for intervention in Cuba after that. But the, the most persuasive explanation that I've read is that it was an explosion in the coal room.

• 14:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, there was, there was an investigation in 1976 by a US admiral that basically concluded that it was spontaneous combustion of the coal store and a defect in the design of the ship, because the coal store was right next to the magazine and it ignited the magazine and that sank the ship.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  Frank, before we go into more detail about Spain and the Philippines and Cuba, what was the import of Cuba and the Philippines to the US's growing strategic interests in Central and South America and the Pacific Rim?

• 15:21Speaker 06

  Well, as Mary indicated, the United States Navy is growing. There's a navalist movement in the 1890s in the United States. There's a very influential book published in 1890 by Alfred Thayer Mahan, who teaches at the Naval War College in America, called The Influence of Sea Power on History. And Mahan argues that Britain's success as an empire was a result of sea power. Likely true. And that if the United States wants to emulate Britain, it needs to develop its navy. So it invests considerably in its navy. The navies of the world at that time depend on coal, and they need coaling stations around the world. And so there's a belief that if the United States is going to compete

• 16:05Speaker 06

  with Britain, they're not worried about Spain, really, that they need to expand. And it's about gaining access to markets in Asia and in the Caribbean, and that naval expansion is the way to do this. And one of the strongest and most fervent proponents of this, of course, is Theodore Roosevelt, who will play a pretty significant role in the coming war.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Mary Vincent, is there in Spain a connection to the Philippines the way there is to Cuba? What is that relationship between the Philippines, which is so far away from Spain?

• 16:39Speaker 04

  It is, and I think the relationship is remote. I don't think that the Philippines occupy anything like the same prominence in Spain or Spanish culture, or in that kind of the imperial psyche that Cuba does. There is a real connection with Cuba for Spain, and for many Spaniards, there isn't for the Philippines. There is mission activity, there is always some commercial activity, but it is a long way away. And there are other Pacific islands as well, the Caroline Islands, which, again, don't... There's a reach, you could say, that this empire stretches all These thousands and thousands of miles, but the actual interest in Spain is definitely with the American, the remaining American colonies.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  And they pour soldiers into Cuba. I mean, there are a lot of Spanish troops there, right?

• 17:26Speaker 04

  They pour soldiers into Cuba. So they deploy more, more soldiers in Cuba than the United States has in its standing army. And they've been pouring soldiers in through the eighteen nineties because of the War of Independence in Cuba. Many are reservists. Serving officers are actually often reluctant to go and serve in Cuba. And that's almost certainly, well, that tells you quite a lot about the Spanish army, but that's a different question, a different issue. But, but what they do know is that if you, the risks of dying of disease in Cuba are very, very high. Yellow fever and malaria scythed through the, the mobilized Spanish troops in Cuba, to which of course the response is to send more, hence the reliance on reservists.

• 18:10Speaker 07

  Chat GPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. Chat GPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com slash parents to learn more.

• 18:39Speaker 07

  What's that? My fresh detector. Uh, your what? There it is. What is it detecting? Fresh produce, fresh meat. Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 18:53Speaker 07

  Apparently we celebrate. At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices. When your fresh detector is going off, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Covino and Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which

• 19:31Speaker 02

  can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  So Steve Wilkinson, the Cuban rebels, they'd been at this for quite a long time, trying to overthrow the Spanish rule. Did they need US help? Was it important to them that the US come in on their side?

• 20:28Speaker 05

  It was, because they, well, there's a moot point amongst historians. There is a tendency in historiography to exaggerate the requirement of American troops to fulfill the independence. But it would be fair, I think, to say that the war had been fought to a kind of a stalemate, that the Spanish were still occupying the main cities and the Cubans had managed to more or less liberate the countryside, but the countryside was absolutely destroyed. So had the war continued without American intervention, it's probably likely that Spain would be vanquished eventually, but it wouldn't have been done in a timely fashion that would

• 21:11Speaker 05

  leave Cuba with anything other than just devastation in its wake. The intervention of the Americans ended it quickly and therefore allowed Cuba to have some space to develop afterwards. So it was fortuitous for the Cubans that the Americans became involved when they did in that respect.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  And also they'd lost, the independence movement had lost their great leader, Jose Martí, because he rather, I thought, rather stupidly fought at the very beginning of the rebellion of 1895. Is that right?

• 21:44Speaker 05

  Yes, he wasn't a soldier and against orders, he rode directly into the fire of the Spanish and committed what some people say is a form of political suicide. But he did leave a legacy which was enormously important to the story and that was that in his knapsack, they found this very famous letter he was writing to his friend in Mexico, Manuel Machado, in which he says that everything that he'd done up to that point had been to try and prevent the United States from actually intervening in Cuba. Because if the United States did, it would dominate the rest of Latin America using Cuba as a platform. And he says, "I've lived inside the monster," meaning the United States, "and

• 22:27Speaker 05

  I know its entrails. My sling is that of David." So this kind of conceptualization of Cuba being a kind of bastion against American imperialism is set by Marti in his dying letter, and that is quite significant.

• 22:41Speaker 03

  So he sees it as sort of out of the Spanish frying pan into the American fire, is that right?

• 22:46Speaker 05

  That was the danger, and the leadership amongst the Cubans was very much of the mind. The great black general, Antonio Maceo, was also killed in 1896, which was actually even bigger blow to the insurgency. He also said that "we have to achieve independence without the Americans' help. We'd better not have any debts to such a powerful neighbor." That's what he said. So they were very clear. They wanted to get independence without the Americans' help, and they failed to do it, and the Americans came in.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  So Frank, what forces did the US then throw at Cuba?

• 23:19Speaker 06

  Well, as Mary indicated, the United States Army was actually very small at the outbreak of the war. It was about 25,000 men, and most of those, if they had any experience at all, had been used against indigenous people in the trans-Mississippi West in North America, in the wars against Native Americans in the 1870s and 80s. So they mobilized very quickly. President McKinley, once he asked Congress for authorization to protect American interests and protect the Cuban people, and I think that's an important rhetorical device of his, and they call up 125,000 men. But they're mostly new conscripts, and they're

• 23:59Speaker 06

  not terribly well-trained. They mass in Florida, which is not a very pleasant place in the 1890s, and the hygiene within the army is not very well. There's a scandal about this after the war. So there's a very serious problem with public health and disease among the troops. But the United States has a navy and it has a growing navy that it had built up over the previous ten or fifteen years. So its naval forces are quite significant, but its its military forces, army forces are fairly weak. Well, they're large, but they're not terribly well-trained or experienced.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  So Mary Vincent, notwithstanding the weakness of American soldiery at the time, but the strength of the US Navy, they capture Manila and Cuba pretty quickly. What what happens in Spain when they suddenly realise that these territories have been snatched away from them?

• 24:54Speaker 04

  I think that, well, the first response is one of horror. This has happened in the Six Weeks War. It's all over. Spain's lost its navy, entire navy, for the second time in a century, one being at Trafalgar. So there's a there's a feeling of profound humiliation. The speed of the defeat and the destruction of the navy does mean there's nowhere to go. You can't pretend that this was anything other than an utter defeat and a national humiliation. So there is an immediate concern that the political implications and economic ramifications will be immediate and will be severe. And oddly, that doesn't happen. One of the reasons that Spain has been so insistent on, or Spanish elites have

• 25:39Speaker 04

  been so insistent on keeping Cuba as a colony, is that Spanish politics at this time is ostensibly democratic, but actually oligarchic. So they run elections, the results of which are always known in advance, because they are always worked out between clientelist retinues. So there is a massive patronage network, which extends and includes Cuba because of the sugar trade, and does not include the Philippines, and does not include the Caroline Islands. But there is a real concern amongst the elites, including people like the Queen Regent and the Prime Minister, before he was assassinated, that the loss of Cuba will mean the collapse of this internal political system, which is entirely corrupt. These clientelist networks will collapse. That doesn't happen, and that surprises and

• 26:23Speaker 04

  reassures everybody. And the economic impact, which is felt particularly in Catalonia, because- Because Catalan textiles are not competitive internationally, so they need the protected markets in Cuba. But actually, these are commercial businesses, they understand the market and they develop new opportunities in Europe. So the economic impacts are not terribly severe. What does happen is an immediate mood of national introspection. How have we come to this? How have we been defeated by this parvenu Protestant nation in a matter of weeks? How do we have no empire left at all?

• 26:58Speaker 03

  Just interestingly, you mentioned Catalonia there and the the impact on the Catalan economy. Does it spur a renewed interest in Catalan independence?

• 27:08Speaker 04

  Yes, it does. More, I think, Catalan devolution. Independence is very uncommon at this point. But demands for devolution and autonomy and greater Catalan say in their own affairs. That is already present and that is absolutely emboldened by the loss of Cuba.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  So, Steve, we're getting an idea of what happens in Spain. What actually changes for Cubans when independence happens?

• 27:36Speaker 05

  Well, independence doesn't come immediately. The Americans win, obviously, and then they settle a peace deal with the Spanish, the Treaty of Paris, and occupy Cuba for four years before they permit, I would say, Cuba to become independent. Under a constitution that is basically includes elements that are written by the Americans to ensure that American interests are protected there. So what happens is there is a kind of situation arising where Cuba becomes nominally independent, but doesn't really have sovereignty, sovereignty resides elsewhere. And more or less, the United States has the say so over what happens on the island.

• 28:18Speaker 05

  As a consequence, the settlement is not the satisfaction of most of the insurgents. The people that fought the war were fighting for this dream of a Cuba that was for all Cubans. They basically were shut out from the settlement. And it pleased a number of very wealthy Cuban planters who maintained their property and their power within the island. And but the mass of people that actually fought the war were denied what they thought they were fighting for.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  So for the rich Cubans, it was a sort of everything has to change in order for things to stay the same, as it were.

• 28:54Speaker 05

  Yes, I mean, that would be one way of putting it. There was a kind of split in the movement. And the president that became the first president Estrada Palma was of the kind of class that was the former upper elite of Cuba. And they'd kind of sat on the fence to some extent during the war. They finally came in on the side of independence. But some of them would have actually liked to have been annexed into the United States and make Cuba one of the United States even then. But independence was kind of dictated by the Americans themselves through what was known as the Teller Amendment.

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Frank, you wanted to come in there. Perhaps you can tell us about the Teller and Platt Amendments.

• 29:30Speaker 06

  Sure. So, I mean, one question that arises if we see this relatively straightforward military success for the United States is why didn't they annex Cuba? Particularly because there were people calling for it, as we discussed a few minutes ago. Well, there's an anti-imperial movement in the United States that's quite strong. And it's a curious mix. Some of them are sort of well-meaning humanitarians who don't think the United States should become an imperial power. Others are racists. The 1890s is a profoundly racist time in American history. It's when Jim Crow is being introduced and enshrined in law. And they don't want any more non-white people in the United States. And so it's a diverse

• 30:12Speaker 06

  movement that's quite influential in certain ways. And when Congress, the United States Congress, adopted the legislation to declare war on Spain and to end fund this war and to undertake this military action, one senator, Teller, put down an amendment saying, we will do this in the name of the Cuban people and to free the Cuban people, but we will not annex Cuba. So the United States was prohibited from annexing Cuba.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  But a little later, there comes another amendment.

• 30:42Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  What is that?

• 30:43Speaker 06

  So it's the Platt Amendment, which basically comes several years later, after the success of the war, after the treaty is completed. The United States doesn't want to give up its influence in Cuba. And it more or less says Cuba can't do anything without the approval of the United States. It can't do anything that threatens. So the United States says because it was... Respects the sovereignty of Cuba. It will intervene on behalf of the Cuban people. It's very paternalistic. And Washington will determine what's in the best interests of Cuba. So the Plaid Amendment attempts to reverse the Teller Amendment. But as a consequence, the United States never formally annexes Cuba. Although, as we know, for the, for the next sixty years, it's going to.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Day factor, it's a protectorate of the.

• 31:27Speaker 06

  Yes, that's right.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  United States.

• 31:29Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  Um, I just want to get a sense at this time, the eighteen nineties. It's three decades after the end of the civil war. America is becoming a very powerful country industrially. How does what's going on in American society impact on this idea of, of it possibly becoming an empire?

• 31:50Speaker 06

  Sure, I mean, the United States is growing economically. It's becoming an industrial power. In fact, in certain areas, it's overtaking Britain. And within a, within a few years, it will completely overtake Britain as an industrial power. Its population is booming. Where we see the beginning of a surge in immigration from about eighteen ninety down to the early nineteen twenties. Uh, the so-called new immigration, millions of immigrants are coming to the country from Southern and Eastern Europe in particular. Again, old stock Americans, some of them see this as very threatening. And there's a belief that the United States is, is, it's urbanizing very quickly. The cities are growing and that it's almost outgrowing itself.

• 32:30Speaker 06

  And that this empire is necessary as a source for raw materials, is um potential markets. But also as a kind of outlet, because there's, there's an early, there's a depression in the early eighteen nineties. It's quite severe. And there is a lot of industrial action and industrial violence in the United States in the eighteen nineties. And so there's, there's also a belief that the United States needs this empire as a kind of safety valve.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  So could you argue, and this is to any of you, could you argue that the Spanish-American War is the moment when the United States becomes or is becoming a global imperial power?

• 33:09Speaker 04

  I would say so, definitely.

• 33:11Speaker 05

  I agree, absolutely.

• 33:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, there's a tendency sometimes to look at nineteen seventeen and the American entry into the First World War is that moment. But I think, I, I think it's eighteen ninety-eight.

• 33:20Speaker 04

  I think it's eighteen ninety-eight. I think it completely, completely changes the world order, actually.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  So Mary, what about the European order? Spain suddenly in decline. Is the rest of Europe watching this and aware of what's happening to Spain? And how does that change perceptions on this continent?

• 33:38Speaker 04

  They're definitely watching it. Lord Salisbury is extremely rude about Spain in the House of Lords in 1897 and refers to it as a dying nation in a clear statement of some social Darwinist principles that's applied to global power. That, I think, is possibly quite an extreme point of view. But there's no doubt that Spain is seen as not simply a dying power, but probably a dead one. France is interested in Morocco, where Spain does still have a colonial interest. And there is, I think, the mood in Europe is that this is cementing the current order in which Spain, like Portugal, is a former imperial power, but is not a current one,

• 34:20Speaker 04

  despite the very small African colonies and the military protectorate in Morocco.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  Does Britain see this as an opportunity at all?

• 34:27Speaker 04

  I think Britain is not very interested in any direct annexation. I think Britain is interested in ensuring that British commercial interests in Spain, which are substantial, particularly in the vast country with the iron and steel industries, the railways, less extent in Catalonia. But there are real links between the northwest of Spain. And it is very interested in ensuring that those economic interests are secured. But because the political system doesn't go into crisis after the defeat and because the economic ramifications are relatively easily worked through, I think that provides reassurance to the banks and the shipping companies and the heavy industry.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  That it's business as usual, basically. Steve, we've already identified that Cuba becomes a sort of protectorate. Is there any anti-US movement? I mean, organized or violent anti-US movement in Cuba?

• 35:29Speaker 05

  In the early part of the twentieth century, there were numerous uprisings in Cuba against the settlement. So Cuba was a very unstable republic, and this manifests itself in various ways. But principally, you have a kind of antipathy towards the settlement itself, but not directly against American citizens or anti-Americanism, as you might say. But a great deal of dissatisfaction with the way in which the republic is stillborn in that sense, the lack of sovereignty, which is a current that recurs throughout, and

• 36:08Speaker 05

  a resentment particularly of some of the terms of this Platt Amendment. So the most violent revolution that takes place prior to nineteen fifty is in nineteen thirty-three, which manages to abrogate the Platt Amendment but doesn't actually remove American influence in the country. So to all intents and purposes, what is denied is a sort of sense of fulfillment of Cuban ideals of nationalism, which becomes heavily pregnant as the century goes on.

• 36:40Speaker 03

  So we can see the origins of the Cuban Revolution of the nineteen fifty as going back to that period?

• 36:49Speaker 05

  I think it's fair to say. However, of course, Cuban historians, particularly the ones that are on the island, will emphasize this enormously. It is true, though, that the people that surrounded Fidel Castro in nineteen fifty-three, when he launched his first attempt to overthrow the government, called themselves la generación del centenario, the centenary generation, because Jose Martí was born in eighteen fifty-three. And the manifesto of the movement at that time is very explicit in saying, what would the apostle Martí say of Cuba if he saw it today? This is not the kind of place he dreamed of, and we're going to fulfill this. Now, they had parents and grandparents who were veterans

• 37:33Speaker 05

  of both struggles, eighteen ninety-eight and nineteen thirty-three. And so there is a very strong continuity here, which is very significant.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Frank, we haven't really talked about the Philippines yet. So what happens when the United States basically seizes the Philippines? Is it a similar situation to what happens in Cuba?

• 37:55Speaker 06

  There are some very interesting parallels, Misha. So the United States acquires Puerto Rico an interest in Cuba, as we've just discussed. But then in the Pacific, it occupies Guam as well as acquiring the Philippines. And it pays Spain in the in the peace treaty that ended the war of 1898 in December of that year, the Peace of Paris, twenty million dollars for the Philippines. And there were parallels with what was happening in the Philippines and what happened in Cuba in that there was a rebellion against Spanish rule in the Philippines that the United States tapped into that had a very charismatic leader, Emiliano Aguinaldo.

• 38:36Speaker 06

  Aguinaldo lived to his 90s, so he was more fortunate than Jose Martí. But initially, there were some very clear parallels between the two, and the Americans attempted to cooperate with the rebels in the Philippines initially. Soon after they acquired the Philippines, however, the rebellion continued, the rebellion flared up, and it was a much more serious conflict. It lasted much longer, it was three years, and it was much more bloody than the Spanish-American War. The Philippine-American War resulted in the deaths of 4,000 US soldiers, probably 20,000 Filipino combatants, but 150 to 200,000 Philippine civilians were killed in this conflict.

• 39:20Speaker 06

  And the United States, which had entered this conflict as an anti-imperial power, attempting to protect people who were rebelling for their freedom, used concentration camps, torture, behaved essentially as the Spanish did in Cuba in the Philippines in order to put down this rebellion.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Which suggests that the United States saw the Philippines as a critical territory strategically.

• 39:45Speaker 06

  It was a critical territory. I mean, I'm sure this is a something, a time for a subject for another episode. We're not far off the box of rebellion in China and the and there's a great deal of concern about access to Chinese markets and the United States is very, very interested in the Philippines because of its location. They also acquire, they annex Hawaii. The United States annexes Hawaii in August of 1898, just when the armistice was announced, the ceasefire during the war. So they're consolidating an empire in the Pacific. So this conflict, which started in the Caribbean, takes on a very different hue in the Pacific for the United States.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  Mary, carrying on with the consequences for Spain, we have, of course, in 1936, we have the Spanish Civil War flaring up with immense consequences. Can we trace back the defeat in the Spanish-American War? Can we can we trace that civil war back to that? Or are there certain things which start moving at that time?

• 40:44Speaker 04

  Yes, we definitely can. But just before I answer that, I would like to say that Vayler did actually justify his his policy in Cuba later on, the grounds that the Americans had done it in the Philippines and the British had done it in South Africa, and that therefore somehow it was insightful and quite okay, which is obviously not the case. I think that does actually give you an insight into the military mindset in Spain. So at the end of the Spanish-American War, the Spanish military is top-heavy, overstaffed, has many staff officers. It actually has the ludicrous position of having 142 admirals for two warships. And the situation in the when the ground forces is not as exaggerated, but it's still

• 41:25Speaker 04

  bad. In pretty much 100 years, they have only defeated other Spaniards, a pattern that will continue into the 20th century. But they are absolutely have an exaggerated sense of the imperial destiny of Spain. They have an exaggerated sense of their own importance in Spain and the Spanish nation, and they have a real position in the Spanish state, which relies on them for public order, essentially. So they have that segmented position within the Spanish state. And in 1905, after military officers have marched into a newspaper in Barcelona and destroyed the printing presses because they didn't like what was being said about the

• 42:07Speaker 04

  army, the law of jurisdictions gives the Spanish military jurisdiction over civilians where there is an insult to the honour of the army. So you have this extraordinary overreach of military jurisdiction, a reliance on the public order, and this exaggerated sense of them as defenders of the Spanish empire, defenders of the national destiny. You've got a direct route from there to 1936 and Franco's military coup. You also have outside that this mood of national introspection, which becomes known as regeneration, when everybody agrees there's something wrong with Spain, but nobody can quite agree what it is. You have a bifurcated response. One is saying that Spain must modernise, Spain must Europeanise, Spain must be secular,

• 42:52Speaker 04

  and the other one saying, no, Spain must go back to the glories of its past and work out its own unique route towards the future. And there you have pretty much a cementing of two clear political traits that have been there since the early 19th century, but which you will actually, will actually fight each other in the 1930s and the Civil War.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Final question about the Spanish-American War, and again, it's to all of you. What was the role of the media in this war? Steve?

• 43:23Speaker 05

  Well, it was enormous in the respect that it galvanised public opinion in the United States in order to invade the island on the basis that they were going to help the Cubans free themselves from these beastly Spaniards who were treating them so awfully. And there was a huge media war going on, particularly in New York, between Hearst and Pulitzer, and they were trying to outdo each other with salacious and sometimes quite outrageously exaggerated reports about Cuban or Spanish bestiality in Cuba. So, yeah, it was, it was very important in, in that respect.

• 43:59Speaker 03

  Yes, I saw a quote from William Randolph Hearst saying to a photographer, "You send me the photos, I'll give you a war." Frank, is that?

• 44:09Speaker 06

  That is a, that is a, that is an actual quote. Historians argue, American US historians debate just how influential this so-called yellow journalism, as it was called, was. Steve's right, it was centered in New York, and of course, New York is a very important city in the United States, and so therefore, the New York media probably had a disproportionate influence on government policy. After the, after the sinking of the USS Maine, or the accident that resulted in the sinking of the Maine, you know, remember the Maine became a, a war cry, the press and Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst each own mass circulation newspapers and they are whipping up this war fever and really demonizing the Spanish and creat- you know,

• 44:54Speaker 06

  so, which helps persuade the American public, even the anti-imperialists, that this is a, probably a good war if, if we, that is, the United States, help the Cuban, help the Cuban people.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  A last word, Mary, from you.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  And it's the inverse in Spain, it's the inverse in Spain, so that you have, again, you have a popular press, you have a lot of jingoism, but it's absolutely about the glory of the imperial Spain and standing up to defeating the, the American pig.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  My thanks to Mary Vincent, Frank Cogliano and Steve Wilkinson. Next week, hallelujah, it's Handel's Messiah. Thank you for listening.

• 45:33Speaker 07

  And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Misha and his guests.

• 45:41Speaker 03

  What didn't we talk about?

• 45:43Speaker 05

  A lot, I think. On the point of the press, I have to say that the, the so-called Cuban junta, the leadership of the, of the Cubans in exile that were supporting the insurrection, were very instrumental in feeding Hearst and Pulitzer with material. So there, there was a very direct influence by the Cubans themselves on whipping up the, the hysteria in the United States because they did want the United States to intervene. And they were also instrumental in getting the Teller Amendment passed. Their lawyer, American lawyer, Erasio Rubin-

• 46:18Speaker 05

  Was responsible for actually pumping a lot of money into the Senate so that it would go through the committee without a vote. Um, and the, yeah, so, so the Cubans were heavily involved in the politics at the time.

• 46:30Speaker 03

  The Teller Amendment seems to me to be a good thing as far as the Cubans are concerned. Did they think they'd succeeded in their goals when that was passed?

• 46:40Speaker 05

  It was a very, very carefully worded document. I mean, it talks about the United States pacifying the island before allowing for independence. And that, that pacification clause gives the United States the authority to occupy the island military and govern it. For such a time where they can actually establish a, a government that is to their liking essentially.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  Frank, I was struck by how the Americans hadn't really absorbed that their push to the south and west of North America in the eighteen forties in particular was an imperial project in as much that they were taking territories away from people who already lived there.

• 47:23Speaker 06

  This is one of the um, curious things about American imperialism and, and the fact, and I, Americans do not see themselves as imperialist. To this day, it's a very complicated question. They came up with a very effective system of geographic expansion. So that, that, that expansion within North America, the, the territories contiguous to the United States. Because what they do is they add territories as states on an equal basis with the existing states. So they're not colonies, they're territories, and they go through a territorial status and, but they're not permanent colonies. The change we see after eighteen ninety-eight is the United States is acquiring overseas colonies, just like European empires do.

• 48:07Speaker 04

  But it's, and it's also interesting because of the last point brought out that Cuba is already looking to the States. That there are many people in Cuba that are already looking to the States, there are increasing trade rates, you know, that, that, there are those connections.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Well, of course, it's only ninety miles away from Florida, so.

• 48:23Speaker 06

  You have this version of economic power, right?

• 48:26Speaker 05

  Contextualizing it, Mary, that's correct, because in fact, the United States had all but taken control of Cuba economically prior to eighteen ninety-five.

• 48:35Speaker 05

  Um. American investment there was enormous and most of the trade had already switched to the United States from Spain. So the the situation was that Cuba had almost become a a colony in economic terms, um even prior to to to the war.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Um. Mary, they we mentioned very briefly, you did, I think, that they also acquired Puerto Rico.

• 49:00Speaker 04

  They did.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  But the Spanish don't appear to be terribly interested in Puerto Rico. Why is that? Because if you look on a map, you would have thought that's actually a very important territory.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  I I think it's really interesting how Cuba dominates um the the the discourse in Spain. And I think Puerto Rico is quite often seen as as kind of an annex to Cuba, or they talk about the American colonists altogether. And I think that that really is that it's the it's sugar, it's sugar that that cements that position of Cuba. That means it is it is comparatively rich, certainly compared to the remaining colonial possessions that Spain has. And that means that there are opportunities for those clientless networks, the elites to span both Cuba and Spain in a way that doesn't happen with Puerto with Puerto Rico and certainly doesn't happen with the Philippines.

• 49:49Speaker 03

  And we should mention, Frank, that the Americans also arrogate the rights to occupy Guantanamo Bay at this stage.

• 49:58Speaker 06

  Permanently.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  Permanently, which is then used a little later on.

• 50:04Speaker 06

  Indeed. In contrast to or despite the Teller Amendment, um so they have a kind of very expansive view of of uh how they should deploy their power in the region. And Puerto Rico is is attractive to the Americans as a naval base because they're also worried about Britain. Uh you know, they they want to warn Britain off the Caribbean. They want to make it an American lake. Uh let's not forget they're about to build the Panama Canal.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  Explain the importance of that, the Panama Canal.

• 50:38Speaker 06

  So there's an existing treaty from the eighteen sixties between Britain and the United States that says they'll collaborate on a canal across Central America. There's some debate about where it's going to be. But the Panama Canal, of course, will shorten the route to the Pacific. It will link the Philippines, among other places, and Asia more generally to the Atlantic. And it's incredibly important. And it's a project that the French had initially begun. So there's been longstanding interest by European empires in a canal across Central America. But once the Americans remove Spain and consolidate their power in the Caribbean, they're going to build it.

• 51:19Speaker 03

  Now, I can't remember if I get this right about my US presidents, but I think McKinley was followed by Teddy Roosevelt. What's Roosevelt's approach to all of this?

• 51:29Speaker 05

  Well, he was instrumental in the Panama Canal situation, very much so. He was one of these people that was one of the great imperialists that Frank was talking about. Very significant, was Secretary of the Navy, actually dispatched the Navy to the Philippines before the war was even started. He was very instrumental, pushing the envelope of the war. And when he became president, oversaw the establishment of Panama as a state, really. I think he even had shares in the company.

• 52:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, and one of the things that happens is the war helps make him president. So he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy when the war broke out. And as Steve said, he dispatches the Navy from Hong Kong to Manila on May 1st, or the Battle of Manila Bay is on May 1st. So soon after the war breaks out, he then resigns and raises a regiment, a volunteer regiment, that's a sort of aristocratic, it's a group of aristocrats who form a volunteer regiment. His uniform is tailor-made at Brooks Brothers. And they're called the Rough Riders. And he raises them. And at one point, they travel from Texas to Florida before they go

• 52:42Speaker 06

  to Cuba. And he's reading a book in French called The Superiority of the Anglo-Saxon. So this tells you what you need to know about Roosevelt. His regiment, his unit, the Rough Riders, play a key role in the battle around Santiago de Cuba in early July of eighteen ninety-eight with, coincidentally, a unit of black soldiers. And I can say something about that in a second, but they seize the heights of San Juan Hill, as the Americans will know it, and this makes Roosevelt a war hero. So he's both played a key role in the expansion of the navy and believes in naval power and dispatches the navy to Manila, joins the army, puts on his Brooks Brothers uniform,

• 53:23Speaker 06

  and helps. Again, there's a very famous image of him atop San Juan Hill, surrounded by his soldiers. So he emerges from this as a hero. When McKinley runs for president in nineteen, runs for reelection in nineteen hundred, he can't leave Roosevelt off the ticket effectively. And McKinley's going to be assassinated, and Roosevelt will become president.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  So, Mary, Frank's mentioned about the Americans' relationship with Britain, that they sort of admired Britain, they're just overtaking Britain, as I understand it, in terms of industrial power. Where does Germany figure in all this? Because Germany is also, like the United States now, a new, growing, and quite impressive power.

• 54:10Speaker 04

  It's an interesting point. My understanding is that Germany's interests are, territorially, they're quite different. So whereas there might be some competition in Africa, Germany looks further south to Africa. It's much more set on Britain and France. Spain, like Portugal, I think, is seen as an irrelevance. Obviously, Portugal does still have colonies down in Southern Africa. And for Spain, I think the fact that it doesn't have a navy anymore makes things, is very, is significant on a world, on a world stage. So for Germany, I think Spain is irrelevant. Spain itself is pretty much divided between, the elites between pro-Britain and pro-German.

• 54:49Speaker 06

  The Americans are worried about the Germans as a possible threat in the Caribbean, but especially in the Pacific. So one of the reasons they annex Hawaii is because they want to beat the Germans to it, and Guam.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  And Spain has sold the Caroline Islands to Germany.

• 55:03Speaker 05

  And one thing we didn't touch on, which was, I think, very important, is the extent to which the United States had designs on Cuba from very early on. I mean, as soon as the Louisiana Purchase took place in eighteen oh three, the leaders, Jefferson in particular, were very intent on trying to secure Cuba because of its strategic position in the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico. And that really informs a great deal of American policy.

• 55:27Speaker 06

  Jefferson writes a letter, Steve, early on. He says, there are limits to our expansion. We only have to add Canada and Cuba, and then na plus ultra.

• 55:37Speaker 03

  Frank, you mentioned something there about the black soldiers. So this is, you also said earlier, you reminded us that the Jim Crow laws had been promulgated, and so three decades after the Civil War, and there's a rollback on the rights of African Americans in the South. Who are the Buffalo Soldiers?

• 56:04Speaker 06

  The Buffalo Soldiers are black soldiers. It's a quite celebrated group of soldiers in the US Army that had fought against Native Americans on the plains, the Great Plains in North America, and are deployed during this conflict. And they play a key role during the Battle of San Juan Hill. One reason they're sent to Cuba is because the Department of Defense believes that they will be more immune to yellow fever, or less susceptible to yellow fever than white troops. So to some extent, they're sent there because it's going to be dangerous. So their role in the war is actually quite important, particularly

• 56:46Speaker 06

  in that particular battle, but it also reflects the prevailing racial attitudes of the day, unfortunately.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  And memorialized by Bob Marley.

• 56:54Speaker 06

  Yes, that's right.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  Many decades later.

• 56:57Speaker 05

  And one of the other things that we should mention, I think, somewhat frivolously perhaps, but two cocktails we get from this war. One, the daiquiri, which is where the American soldiers landed, and the Cuba Libre, which is a mixture of rum and Coca-Cola.

• 57:14Speaker 04

  And in Spain, you send poor people. You don't send black people, you send poor people.

• 57:20Speaker 06

  Empire's gonna empire. So Mark Twain had something to say about this. He was a prominent anti-imperialist. And at the end, he said, "So we, the United States, have joined the ranks of the civilized nation." With the banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and the butcher's knife in the other. He's not wrong.

• 57:41Speaker 03

  Good old Mark Twain. I think it's time for some tea or coffee. Thank you.

• 57:47Speaker 00

  Who'd like coffee?

• 57:48Speaker 06

  Tea.

• 57:49Speaker 00

  Tea.

• 57:50Speaker 04

  I've got to go, so I won't.

• 57:52Speaker 00

  Three teas and a taxi.

• 57:54Speaker 07

  In Our Time with Mischa Glenny is produced by Simon Tillotson and it's a BBC Studios production.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  Hello, I'm Alan Davis and on BBC Radio 4 we're off into alternate realities mapped out by science. This is Life Without, where I pull one thread from the magnificent fabric of life and watch what unravels. Scientists around the world would be crying themselves to sleep. A bunch of mammals would be worrying about where their favourite snack was. And we bring it down to earth. David Beckham. I can imagine him putting that on the socials. My bees of my girls have all disappeared. Sometimes we patch it up and crack on. We will survive. We will survive. Humans are ingenious. That is our hallmark, right? We should prize above everything else. But sometimes it's bigger than us.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Join me to find out just how far the unraveling can go. Subscribe to Life Without on BBC Sounds.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  Hello, Mischa Glenny here. Before you listen to this episode, I wanted to share some exciting news. You can now watch this episode and all future episodes of In Our Time in full video. Just search for In Our Time on YouTube or watch episodes 28 days early by subscribing to the streaming service BBC Select in the US and Canada.