Theodore Roosevelt, an accomplished naval historian and Assistant Secretary of the Navy, led the charge in the 1890s for the creation of a U. S. fleet of modern, steel-hulled warships armed with the most powerful weapons. The future President and his intellectual soul mate, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, championed the theory of sea power to fuel America's emerging global expansion. The swift and overwhelming U. S. victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898 vindicated the views of TR and Mahan and marked the debut on the world stage of the U. S. Navy and the U. S. Marine Corps. Theodore Roosevelt, the U. S. Navy, and the Spanish-American War presents the work of prominent American and Spanish historians and naval officers who participated in a day-long conference held on October 21, 1998, in the U. S. Navy Memorial Foundation's Heritage Center on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. This work is a major contribution to our understanding of Theodore Roosevelt and "his" Navy at this key turning point in U. S. history.