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A Brief History of the Caribbean is an overview of the historical events that have taken place and shaped the islands of the Caribbean Sea.
Pawn of the U.S. government. Right-hand man to the mob. Iron-fisted dictator. For decades, public understanding of the pre-Revolutionary Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista has been limited to these stereotypes. While on some level they all contain an element of truth, these superficial characterizations barely scratch the surface of the complex and compelling career of this important political figure. Second only to Fidel Castro, Batista is the most controversial leader in modern Cuban history. And yet, until now, there has been no objective biography written about him. Existing biographical literature is predominantly polemical and either borders on hero worship or launches a series of attack...
In this book, Frank Argote-Freyre provides a portrait of Fulgencio Batista. He describes Batista's rise to power as part of a revolutionary movement and the intrigues and dangers that surrounded him. Drawing on an extensive review of Cuban newspapers, government records, memos, oral history interviews, and a selection of Batista's personal documents, Argote-Freyre moves beyond simplistic caricatures to uncover the real man one with strengths and weaknesses and with a career marked by accomplishments as well as failures. The first volume focuses on Batista's role as a revolutionary leader from 1933 to 1934 and his image as a "strongman" in the years between 1934 and 1939. Argote-Freyre also uses Batista as an interpretive prism to review an entire era that is usually ignored by scholars the Republican period of Cuban history. Bringing together global and local events, he considers the significance and relationship of the worldwide economic depression, the beginnings of World War II, and in Cuba, the Revolution of 1933, the expansion of the middle class, and the gradual development of democratic institutions.--From publisher's description.
From 1895 to 1898, Cuban insurgents fought to free their homeland from Spanish rule. Though often overshadowed by the "Splendid Little War" of the Americans in 1898, according to John Tone, the longer Spanish-Cuban conflict was in fact more remarkable, foreshadowing the wars of decolonization in the twentieth century. Employing newly released evidence--including hospital records, intercepted Cuban letters, battle diaries from both sides, and Spanish administrative records--Tone offers new answers to old questions concerning the war. He examines the origin of Spain's genocidal policy of "reconcentration"; the causes of Spain's military difficulties; the condition, effectiveness, and popularity of the Cuban insurgency; the necessity of American intervention; and Spain's supposed foreknowledge of defeat. The Spanish-Cuban-American war proved pivotal in the histories of all three countries involved. Tone's fresh analysis will provoke new discussions and debates among historians and human rights scholars as they reexamine the war in which the concentration camp was invented, Cuba was born, Spain lost its empire, and America gained an overseas empire.
Even though Fidel Castro founded the "26 of July" movement, this book shows that the organizing throughout Cuba fell on the shoulders of an underground leader named Frank Pais, who was also responsible for the survival of the incipient guerrilla force led by Castro in the Sierra Maestra. Pais became not only the National Chief of Action-as portrayed in the official publications-but the top leader of the M-26-7's National Directorate. The antagonism between Castro and Pais may have been the reason for his mysterious death when he was only 22 years of age. This is the true story of his life and legacy. At this crucial time, when historians are trying to arrive at the revolution's final balance, a book like this is essential to read before reaching an impartial verdict.
This intimate, revisionist portrait of Fidel Castro, showing how an unlikely young Cuban led his country in revolution and transfixed the world, is “sure to become the standard on Castro’s early life” (Publishers Weekly). Until now, biographers have treated Castro’s life like prosecutors, scouring his past for evidence to convict a person they don’t like or don’t understand. Young Castro challenges us to put aside the caricature of a bearded, cigar-munching, anti-American hothead to discover how Castro became the dictator who acted as a thorn in the side of US presidents for nearly half a century. In this “gripping and edifying narrative…Hansen brings imposing research and no...
Sugar was Cuba’s principal export from the late eighteenth century throughout much of the twentieth, and during that time, the majority of the island’s population depended on sugar production for its livelihood. In Blazing Cane, Gillian McGillivray examines the development of social classes linked to sugar production, and their contribution to the formation and transformation of the state, from the first Cuban Revolution for Independence in 1868 through the Cuban Revolution of 1959. She describes how cane burning became a powerful way for farmers, workers, and revolutionaries to commit sabotage, take control of the harvest season, improve working conditions, protest political repression,...
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This brief text offers an unbiased reflection on the neoliberalism debate in Latin America and the institutional puzzle that underlies the region's difficulties with democratization and development.
Cuba Betrayed, first published in 1962, is an autobiographical work of former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, in which he expresses his viewpoint regarding his two terms as dictator, his defeat, and his successors—Cuba’s “Betrayers.” “The book is not meant to be a literary masterpiece. Still less has there been any attempt at stylistic elegance. It is, rather, an exposition of facts, a narration based on memory and notes.”—Introduction