This book argues that the various images and representations used to describe the "new navy" in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were indicative of a shift in how the American people viewed themselves, and how they viewed their proper role in the world. Specifically, this thesis provides a narrative of American social, economic, political, and foreign policy in the fin de siecle period, a narrative of the American naval rebuilding program in the same period, an analysis of popular and elite discourse about the navy between 1889 and 1917, and an analysis of professional naval discourse between 1888 and 1917. The book closes with a comparison of how the "new navy" sold itself to the American people and how the U.S. Navy sells itself to the American people today. It concludes that the modern U.S. Navy was born in the fin de siecle period from a cultural standpoint, and that this represented the origins of American global power."