A remarkable evocation, alive with the burst of national energy it chronicles, of the year that saw America's emergence as a contender among the world powers.

David Traxel takes us through the excitements of 12 months crowded with action, from U.S. victory in the war with Spain and our acquisition of Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the rush of business expansion (Uneeda Biscuits and the world's first million-dollar ad campaign) to internal conflict (coal miners versus mine owners), to technological leaps forward (the advent of the gas-powered car). It was as well the year of the Gibson Girl's apogee, of Admiral Peary's most grueling attempt to reach the North Pole, and the year when L. Frank Baum was hard at work on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Traxel's graceful, anecdotal narrative is interwoven with the voices of such 1898 luminaries as Theodore Roosevelt, Carry Nation, Jack London, Clara Barton, William Jennings Bryan, Geronimo, and W. E. B. Du Bois. The publications of the book marks the hundredth anniversry of the Spanish-American War. But it is the whole texture of American life 100 years ago that is captured here.