This is the first full account in any language of Spain's disastrous war with the United States in 1898, in which it lost the remnants of its old empire. It is also the first comprehensive analysis of the ensuing political and social crisis in Spain from the loss of empire through the First World War to the military coup of 1923. Balfour's study essential reading for anyone interested in the roots of the Spanish crisis in the first half of the twentieth century.