To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society

For much of the nineteenth century and all of the twentieth, the per capita rate of suicide in Cuba was the highest in Latin America and among the highest in the world — a condition made all the more extraordinary in light of Cuba’s historic ties to the Catholic church. In this richly illustrated social and cultural history of suicide in Cuba, Louis A. Pérez Jr. explores the way suicide passed from the unthinkable to the unremarkable in Cuban society.

In a study that spans the experiences of...