Linda Robinson
Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba is at once a colorful family saga and a carefully researched corrective to caricatures of decadent pre-revolutionary Cuba and the 50-year disaster of Fidel Castro's rule…The Bacardi liquor story is every bit as engaging as Cuba's tumultuous political history, and both narrative strands are inexorably intertwined.
—The Washington Post
Barry Gewen
There's a shelf of histories [on Cuba] to consult. But it's hard to imagine that any is as enjoyable as Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba by Tom Gjelten, a correspondent for National Public Radio. His book is as smooth and refreshing as a well-made daiquiri…What makes Mr. Gjelten's book such a standout is its quality of subjectivity. Presenting his history through the lives of people who affected the events they personally experienced and were in turn affected by them, he gives us drama, not chronology or statistics.
—The New York Times
Randy Kennedy
…succeeds in painting a vivid portrait of the company's early, scrappy years and its prominent role in the fight against Spanish rule. Emilio Bacardi, especially, comes to life as the book's most powerful character, though one so strange that Gabriel Garcia Marquez might have invented him…Gjelten also provides a fascinating look at how the company built itself into the multinational giant it has become
—The New York Times Book Review
Kirkus Reviews
A refreshing history of the folks who brought the world the Cuba libre, and who agitate for a Cuba libre even today. The Bacardi rum dynasty is now headquartered in Puerto Rico, but its origins are Cuban-and, writes NPR correspondent Gjelten (Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege, 1995), Cuban of a particular kind, nationalistic and proud. The 19th-century residents of Santiago were mostly Catalan businesspeople and artisans who, contrary to countless stereotypes, were renowned for their work ethic and thriftiness. The Bacardi empire grew from a small shop, spearheaded by a light, dry, tasty rum that "became the drink of choice . . . just as Cuba was becoming a nation." Thereafter it was tied up, in a complicated way, with Cuban self-identity, celebrated by Hemingway and by countless Cuban intellectuals, diplomats and even dissidents. Indeed, writes Gjelten, the far-flung Bacardi family was also well known for standing in opposition to the various tinhorn tyrants who followed independence, notably Fulgencio Batista. In a nicely ironic moment, Gjelten observes that Batista, a former army sergeant, came to power thanks to American fears of a Communist Cuba in the 1930s. The Bacardis were progressive and seemingly incorruptible, which put them at odds with that reactionary, thoroughly corrupt regime. They also ran afoul, however, of Fidel Castro, whom most of the Bacardis supported to some degree or another, but who moved to nationalize the rum industry. In the bargain, Fidel made of the Bacardis a powerful foe-though, like most Cubans in exile, its members "repeatedly misjudged conditions in Cuba and made erroneous predictions," particularly on the matter of when Castrowould leave office and his revolution would collapse. A solid, journalistic treatment of commercial and political history, of a piece with Tom Miller's Trading with the Enemy (1992), Ann Louise Bardach's Cuba Confidential (2002) and other studies of the island. Agent: Gail Ross/Gail Ross Literary Agency
From the Publisher
"The Bacardi liquor story is every bit as engaging as Cuba's tumultuous political history, and both narrative strands are inexorably intertwined."
-The Washington Post
"A gripping saga that tells us just as much about human nature and the struggle between power and freedom as it does about Bacardi's transformation from a fledgling business into the world's top family-owned distiller."
-The Wall Street Journal
"It's hard to imagine that any [Cuban history] is as enjoyable . . . as smooth and refreshing as a well-made daiquiri."
-Barry Gewen, The New York Times
