Article Discussion

There’s much more to Andrew Summers Rowan than can be learned from Elbert Hubbard’s fanciful description of his journey to Cuba or, for that matter, than from Rowan’s own account.

Following his graduation from West Point, Rowan was stationed in the far West, was assigned to intelligence missions in Canada and Guatemala, and risked his life in the Spanish-America War, the Philippine War, and the Moro Rebellion. After many other significant military postings, he retired in San Francisco with his second wife.

In 2016, the West Virginia University Press published my biography of Rowan, “Cast in Deathless Bronze: Andrew Rowan, the Spanish-American War, and the Origins of American Empire.” (370pp, paper, 978-1-943665-43-3)

" ‘Cast in Deathless Bronze’ is well worth reading. Rowan’s story not only intersects with West Virginia history, but it reconstructs early military efforts at intelligence-gathering, reveals the many aspects—the tedious and lonely, the fulfilling and frustrating—of military life on the late nineteenth-century western frontier and in Cuba and the Philippines, and illustrates effectively the way history is often twisted into a myth that overwhelms both the actions of its original participants and truth itself. Jack Hammersmith, West Virginia History

“What makes this book so fascinating is the way in which the author weaves Andrew Rowan’s personal story into the greater history of American imperial expansion under McKinley and Roosevelt. Both general readers and scholars interested in West Virginia history and, especially, in the complex history of the U.S.’s war against Spain and subsequent ascension over the Philippines will find a great deal to admire.” Brady Harrison, author of Agent of Empire: William Walker and the Imperial Self in American Literature

“Rice interweaves personal and national history to outline major shifts in expansionist activity under McKinley and Roosevelt. . . . Readers who thrill to the particulars of life in military camps will find much to enjoy here.” Publishers Weekly

“The story of Andrew Summers Rowan is very much worth telling, and it’s difficult to imagine it being told better than in this book.” Peter Hulme, author of Cuba’s Wild East: A Literary Geography of Oriente