The second and final episode of this arc take the story of the new steel navy to the beginning of the Spanish-American War. From the mid-1880s to the 1890s, the necessary infrastructure was put in place to expand the capabilities of the ships joining the fleet. Moreover, there was a shift in ideas on how to use the navy. Rather than focus on coastal defense and commerce raiding, thanks to the writings of Alfred Thayer Mahan, there was an interest in building larger ships that could wrestle the command of the seas from regional adversaries. Rather than concentrate on cruisers, there was growing interest in building what today we would know as battleships. This will be the final episode of this season before we move forward into thinking about the Spanish-American War.

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