Matthew Bernstein is Editor of the Wild West History Association Journal and teaches English at Harris Newmark High School and Los Angeles City College. This interview is based on his new book, Team of Giants: The Making of the Spanish-American War (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024).
JF: What led you to write Team of Giants?
MB: Books that deal with the Spanish-American War usually fall into two categories: histories or biographies. The histories are typically light on character and the biographies short on context. In Team of Giants: The Making of the Spanish-American War, I married biography and history by taking the five most dynamic figures in the war–Theodore Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, Richard Harding Davis, and Stephen Crane–and showed how they helped foment the war, and then fought in it. The result is an in-depth examination of the causes, figures, and results of the war.
JF: In 2 sentences, what is the argument of Team of Giants?
MB: The Spanish-American War is significant for helping create the American Empire. It also helped mitigate the strife of the Civil War, showed the power of Yellow Journalism, and was the last hurrah of the Wild West.
JF: Why do we need to read Team of Giants?
MB: One of the pivotal figures in Team of Giants is the Confederate General turned American General, “Fighting Joe” Wheeler. Through researching the Wheeler papers in the Alabama Archives in Montgomery, I was able to uncover new material about Wheeler, demonstrating how as a Congressman he helped support not just the war in Cuba but a sense of American fraternity, seeking to heal the wounds of the Civil War. Wheeler’s role in the Spanish-American War, along with the actions of Roosevelt, Hearst, Davis, and Crane, deserves to be remembered.
JF: Why and when did you become an American historian?
MB: I was initially fascinated by the Hearst family, and wrote the first full-fledged biography of George Hearst, published by the University of Oklahoma Press, as a prequel to Team of Giants. Most biographies of William Randolph Hearst gloss over George Hearst (who made the family fortune) because they didn’t have enough information on him. Through examining the Hearst papers in the Bancroft Library at Berkeley and the Huntington Research Library, reading thousands of old newspapers, and visiting Hearst Castle, Death Valley, San Francisco, Deadwood, Virginia City, and Hearst’s childhood stomping grounds in Missouri, I was able to bring the George Hearst story to life. Along the way, I became an expert in Civil War, Wild West, and Gilded Age studies. Currently I serve as the editor of the Wild West History Association Journal, a physical, 90-page quarterly magazine.
JF: What is your next project?
MB: Teaching high school, college, and editing the magazine keeps me pretty busy. But I am working on Crimewave: Murder and Mayhem in the Far West, 1850 – 1929. Writing and researching it has been a lot of fun.
JF: Thanks, Matthew!