Ivan Musicant is a naval historian whose books include U. S. Armored Cruisers and Battleship at War, for which he received the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature in 1987. This article has been condensed from his forthcoming book. The Banana Wars, to be published by Macmillan in spring 1990. He is currently working on a new book. Divided Waters: The Civil War at Sea.
