When large numbers of students from Spain arrived in New York in 1880, they introduced the American public to a new instrument - the mandolin. Spanning more than a century, this book chronicles the national mandolin craze that swept across the nation and the evolution of the instrument in America to the present day. Eclipsing the banjo and guitar as the most popular fretted instrument in the late 19th century, the mandolin inspired the formation of the Gibson company. After World War I, the mand...