
Team of Giants
The Making of the Spanish-American War
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Douglas R Pratt
About this listen
If not for an unlikely alliance among a bespectacled cowboy, a former Confederate general, and a millionaire newspaper publisher, the Spanish-American War might never have been. How these three outsize characters—Theodore Roosevelt, Joseph “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, and William Randolph Hearst—helped ignite the war that established the United States’ offshore empire is the rousing tale that Matthew Bernstein tells in Team of Giants.
From his days as a Dakota deputy sheriff, Theodore Roosevelt had dreamed of leading a cowboy regiment into battle. With a little help from his friends, in 1898 he got his wish. While Roosevelt raised the Rough Riders in San Antonio, Congressman Wheeler delivered bellicose speeches from the US Capitol, and Hearst pulled out all the stops in the San Francisco Examiner and New York Journal. With the destruction of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor and President William McKinley’s call for war, the two greatest star reporters of the era, rivals Richard Harding Davis and Stephen Crane, headed for Cuba to do their part. These towering figures come to life as they set in motion events that would put a period on the Civil War era, transform the global media landscape, and alter geopolitics for the twentieth century.
Team of Giants is a fresh account of the role the martial ambitions of these men played in a war that would launch the American Century and set each man on the path to his own place in history.
The book is published by University of Okahoma Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
©2024 University of Oklahoma Press (P)2025 Redwood AudiobooksCritic reviews
“Lively and energetic study of the Spanish-American War...” (Michael Patrick Cullinane, author of Theodore Roosevelt’s Ghost)
“Will quickly be considered one of the most important histories of one of the least understood American wars.” (True West Magazine)
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Speculation Nation
- Land Mania in the Revolutionary American Republic (Early American Studies)
- By: Michael A. Blaakman
- Narrated by: Scot Wilcox
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the first quarter-century after its founding, the United States was swept by a wave of land speculation so unprecedented in intensity and scale that contemporaries and historians alike have dubbed it a “mania.” In Speculation Nation, Michael A. Blaakman uncovers the revolutionary origins of this real-estate bonanza—a story of ambition, corruption, capitalism, and statecraft that stretched across millions of acres from Maine to the Mississippi and Georgia to the Great Lakes.
-
George Hearst
- Silver King of the Gilded Age
- By: Matthew Bernstein
- Narrated by: Douglas R Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rising from a Missouri boyhood and meager prospecting success to owning the most productive copper, silver, and gold mines in the world and being elected a United States senator, George Hearst (1820–91) spent decades veering between the heights of prosperity and the depths of financial ruin.
-
A Rage to Conquer
- Twelve Battles That Changed the Course of Western History
- By: Michael Walsh
- Narrated by: Michael Walsh
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sequel to Michael Walsh’s Last Stands, his new book A Rage to Conquer is a journey through the twelve of the most important battles in Western history. As Walsh sees it, war is an important facet of every culture—and, for better or worse, our world is unthinkable without it. War has been an essential part of the human condition throughout history, the principal agent of societal change, waged by men on behalf of, and in pursuit of, their gods, women, riches, power, and the sheer joy of combat.
-
-
Not just a Review of 12 Battles
- By David A on 02-03-25
By: Michael Walsh
-
The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism
- A New History
- By: Yanni Kotsonis
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This panoramic book shows how the Greek Revolution was a demographic upheaval more consequential than the overthrow of a ruler. Drawing on Ottoman sources together with archival evidence from Greece, Britain, France, Russia, and Switzerland, the book reframes the birth of modern Greece within the imperial history of the global nineteenth century.
By: Yanni Kotsonis
-
Habsburgs on the Rio Grande
- The Rise and Fall of the Second Mexican Empire
- By: Raymond Jonas
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on research in five languages and in archives across the globe, Habsburgs on the Rio Grande fundamentally revises narratives of global history. Far more than a footnote, the Second Mexican Empire was at the center of world-historic great-power struggles—a point of inflection in a contest for supremacy that set the terms of twentieth-century rivalry.
-
-
Great History
- By Chris on 05-12-25
By: Raymond Jonas
-
Summer of Fire and Blood
- The German Peasants' War
- By: Lyndal Roper
- Narrated by: Rose Akroyd
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The German Peasants’ War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. In 1524 and 1525, it swept across Germany with astonishing speed as well over a hundred thousand people massed in armed bands to demand a new and more egalitarian order. The peasants took control of vast areas of southern and middle Germany, torching and plundering the monasteries, convents, and castles that stood in their way. But they proved no match for the forces of the lords.
-
-
A Lost History Recovered
- By C. C. Kissinger on 03-12-25
By: Lyndal Roper
-
Speculation Nation
- Land Mania in the Revolutionary American Republic (Early American Studies)
- By: Michael A. Blaakman
- Narrated by: Scot Wilcox
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the first quarter-century after its founding, the United States was swept by a wave of land speculation so unprecedented in intensity and scale that contemporaries and historians alike have dubbed it a “mania.” In Speculation Nation, Michael A. Blaakman uncovers the revolutionary origins of this real-estate bonanza—a story of ambition, corruption, capitalism, and statecraft that stretched across millions of acres from Maine to the Mississippi and Georgia to the Great Lakes.
-
George Hearst
- Silver King of the Gilded Age
- By: Matthew Bernstein
- Narrated by: Douglas R Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rising from a Missouri boyhood and meager prospecting success to owning the most productive copper, silver, and gold mines in the world and being elected a United States senator, George Hearst (1820–91) spent decades veering between the heights of prosperity and the depths of financial ruin.
-
A Rage to Conquer
- Twelve Battles That Changed the Course of Western History
- By: Michael Walsh
- Narrated by: Michael Walsh
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sequel to Michael Walsh’s Last Stands, his new book A Rage to Conquer is a journey through the twelve of the most important battles in Western history. As Walsh sees it, war is an important facet of every culture—and, for better or worse, our world is unthinkable without it. War has been an essential part of the human condition throughout history, the principal agent of societal change, waged by men on behalf of, and in pursuit of, their gods, women, riches, power, and the sheer joy of combat.
-
-
Not just a Review of 12 Battles
- By David A on 02-03-25
By: Michael Walsh
-
The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism
- A New History
- By: Yanni Kotsonis
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This panoramic book shows how the Greek Revolution was a demographic upheaval more consequential than the overthrow of a ruler. Drawing on Ottoman sources together with archival evidence from Greece, Britain, France, Russia, and Switzerland, the book reframes the birth of modern Greece within the imperial history of the global nineteenth century.
By: Yanni Kotsonis
-
Habsburgs on the Rio Grande
- The Rise and Fall of the Second Mexican Empire
- By: Raymond Jonas
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on research in five languages and in archives across the globe, Habsburgs on the Rio Grande fundamentally revises narratives of global history. Far more than a footnote, the Second Mexican Empire was at the center of world-historic great-power struggles—a point of inflection in a contest for supremacy that set the terms of twentieth-century rivalry.
-
-
Great History
- By Chris on 05-12-25
By: Raymond Jonas
-
Summer of Fire and Blood
- The German Peasants' War
- By: Lyndal Roper
- Narrated by: Rose Akroyd
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The German Peasants’ War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. In 1524 and 1525, it swept across Germany with astonishing speed as well over a hundred thousand people massed in armed bands to demand a new and more egalitarian order. The peasants took control of vast areas of southern and middle Germany, torching and plundering the monasteries, convents, and castles that stood in their way. But they proved no match for the forces of the lords.
-
-
A Lost History Recovered
- By C. C. Kissinger on 03-12-25
By: Lyndal Roper
-
Lawless Republic
- By: Josiah Osgood
- Narrated by: David Holt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by a crime wave. An epidemic of extortions, murders, and acts of insurrection tested the court system's capacity to maintain order. As case after case filled the docket, an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero seized every opportunity to litigate, forging a reputation as a master debater with a bright future in politics. In Lawless Republic, historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy.
-
-
Entertaining and educational
- By N. Mammen on 02-25-25
By: Josiah Osgood
-
The Containment
- Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North
- By: Michelle Adams
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous decision: In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school desegregation across the North, and to the civil rights movement’s struggle for a truly equal education for all. How did this come about, and why? In The Containment, the esteemed legal scholar Michelle Adams tells the epic story of the struggle to integrate Detroit schools—and what happened when it collided with Nixon-appointed justices committed to a judicial counterrevolution.
-
-
Critical history of what should have been.
- By Lilly Immergluck on 04-09-25
By: Michelle Adams
-
Not Stolen
- The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World
- By: Jeff Fynn-Paul
- Narrated by: Paul Maitrejean
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A renowned historian debunks current distortion and myths about European colonialism in the New World and restores much needed balance to our understanding of the past.
-
-
Reasoned balanced history
- By 1698 Huguenot Descent on 03-09-25
By: Jeff Fynn-Paul
-
American Burial Ground
- A New History of the Overland Trail (America in the Nineteenth Century)
- By: Sarah Keyes
- Narrated by: Judy A Steffen
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In popular mythology, the Overland Trail is typically a triumphant tale, with plucky easterners crossing the Plains in caravans of covered wagons. But not everyone reached Oregon and California. Some 6,600 migrants perished along the way and were buried where they fell, often on Indigenous land. By the 1850s, cholera epidemics, ordinary diseases, and violence had remade the Trail into an American burial ground. In subsequent decades, U.S. officials and citizens leveraged Trail graves to claim Native ground.
By: Sarah Keyes
-
President McKinley
- Architect of the American Century
- By: Robert W. Merry
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Republican President William McKinley transformed America during his two terms as president. Although he does not register large in either public memory or in historians' rankings, in this revealing account, Robert W. Merry offers "a fresh twist on the old tale . . . a valuable education on where America has been and, possibly, where it is going" (The National Review).
By: Robert W. Merry
-
The Seven Men of Spandau
- The Last of the Hitler Gang
- By: Jack Fishman
- Narrated by: Michael Langan
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1945 seven of Hitler's henchmen were incarcerated as solitary inmates of the vast Spandau prison in Berlin originally built to accommodate hundreds. Every conceivable precaution was taken to ensure escape was impossible for such high-profile prisoners. Hitler's henchmen had been tried and convicted for their complicity in Hitler's campaign and had escaped the death penalty, unlike many of their former comrades.
-
-
Intresting
- By James F. Hannon on 03-03-25
By: Jack Fishman