Cuba: A New History / Edition 1

by Richard Gott

Overview

This new look at the history of Cuba illuminates the island’s entire revolutionary past as well as the most recent decades of the Castro regime

Events in Fidel Castro’s island nation often command international attention and just as often inspire controversy. Impassioned debate over situations as diverse as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Elián Gonzáles affair is characteristic not only of modern times but of centuries of Cuban history. In this concise and up-to-date book, British journalist Richard Gott casts a fresh eye on the history of the Caribbean island from its pre-Columbian origins to the present day. He provides a European perspective on a country that is perhaps too frequently seen solely from the American point of view.

The author emphasizes such little-known aspects of Cuba’s history as its tradition of racism and violence, its black rebellions, the survival of its Indian peoples, and the lasting influence of Spain. The book also offers an original look at aspects of the Revolution, including Castro’s relationship with the Soviet Union, military exploits in Africa, and his attempts to promote revolution in Latin America and among American blacks. In a concluding section, Gott tells the extraordinary story of the Revolution’s survival in the post-Soviet years.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300111149
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	11/11/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Richard Gott, a British journalist and historian with many years’ experience in Latin America, first visited Cuba in 1963 and has reported from the island many times since. He is the author of the classic work on post-Castro revolutionary movements, Guerrilla Movements in Latin America, and most recently of In the Shadow of the Liberator: Hugo Chavez and the Transformation of Venezuela.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgements	viii
	Map	x
	Prologue	1
	Introduction: the Cuban people	5
1	Insecure settlement: slaughter, slavery and piracy, 1511-1740	11
	Hatuey and Diego Velasquez: Indian cacique versus Spanish conquistador, 1511	11
	What happened to Cuba's Indians?	21
	Importing a black slave population	23
	The beat of Drake's drum, 1586	26
	Sugar and tobacco: the seventeenth-century development of the island's wealth	36
2	The Spanish empire under challenge, 1741-1868	39
	Guantanamo falls to Admiral Vernon, 1741	39
	Havana falls to the Earl of Albemarle, 1762	41
	Spain's fresh interest in Cuba, 1763-1791	42
	The slave rebellion in Saint-Domingue, 1791	44
	The sharp increase in the slave population, 1763-1841	46
	The first zephyrs of independence, 1795-1824	48
	Powerful voices advocate white immigration	52
	The seeds of US intervention, 1823-1851	57
	Cuban slavery comes under British attack, 1817-1842	59
	Black rebellion: the conspiracy of La Escalera, 1843-1844	64
	Narciso Lopez and the threat of US annexation, 1850 and 1851	67
3	Wars of independence and occupation, 1868-1902	71
	The Grito de Yara and the outbreak of the Ten Year War, 1868	71
	General Lersundi and the Volunteers seize Havana, 1868-1869	74
	Rebel arguments over slavery and annexation	77
	The Pact of Zanjon, and the Protest of Baragua, 1878	81
	Jose Marti and the fresh dreams of independence	84
	The death of the Apostle, May 1895	88
	Spain and Cuba again at war, 1895-1898	90
	General Weyler's development of the concentration camp, 1896-1897	93
	'Remember the Maine!': the US intervention in Cuba, 1898	97
	General Wood and the US occupation of Cuba, 1898-1902	104
	Mortgaged independence: the Platt Amendment, 1902	110
4	The Cuban Republic, 1902-1952	113
	A Republic for Americans: Estrada Palma and Charles Magoon, 1902-1909	113
	A Republic for white settlers from Spain	118
	A Republic denied to blacks: Evaristo Estenoz and the black massacre of 1912	120
	A Republic for gamblers: Mario Menocal and Bert Crowder	125
	A Republic under dictatorship: Gerardo Machado, the tropical Mussolini, 1925-1933	129
	A Republic for revolutionaries: Antonio Guiteras and the Revolution of 1933	135
	A Republic designed for Fulgencio Batista, 1934-1952	142
5	Castro's Revolution takes shape, 1953-1961	147
	Castro's attack on Moncada, 26 July 1953	147
	The Granma landing and the revolutionary war, 1956-1958	154
	The dawn of the Revolution: January 1959	165
	Blacks in the Revolution, 1959	172
	The Revolution's impact abroad, 1959-1960	175
	The United States' reaction to the Revolution, 1959-1960	178
	The Soviet Union's reaction to the Revolution, 1959-1960	181
	'The First Declaration of Havana': the Revolution changes gear, 1960	183
	The economics of the Revolution, 1959-1961	186
	The campaign to eradicate illiteracy, 1961	188
6	The Revolution in power, 1961-1968	190
	The exile invasion at the Bay of Pigs, April 1961	190
	The missiles of October, 1962	195
	Castro's early honeymoon with the Soviet Union, May 1963	209
	The first exodus: Camarioca, 1965	211
	Exporting the Revolution: Latin America, 1962-1967	215
	Exporting the Revolution: Black Cuba's return to Africa, 1960-1966	219
	Exporting the Revolution: mobilising black Americans	225
	Exporting the Revolution: Che Guevara's expedition to Bolivia, 1966-1967	231
7	Inside the Soviet camp, 1968-1985	235
	The Prague Spring, and the decisive turn to the Soviet Union, 1968	235
	'Ten million tons': the failure of the sugar target of 1970	240
	'The Brezhnev Years': restructuring the country in the Soviet image, 1972-1982	243
	Opposition to the Soviet line, at home and abroad, 1968-1972	246
	An opening to the mainland: Castro's visit to Allende's Chile, 1971	248
	Cuba leaps to the defence of Angola, 1975	250
	The nomadic road to socialism: Castro and the Ethiopian revolution, 1977	256
	Havana, Washington and Miami in the Carter years, 1976-1979	261
	The second exodus: the Mariel boatlift, 1980	266
	Revolutions in Nicaragua and Grenada, 1979	269
8	Cuba stands alone, 1985-2003	273
	Mikhail Gorbachev: the new broom in Moscow: 1985	273
	Cuba's victory at Cuito Cuanavale, 1988	276
	The execution of Arnaldo Ochoa, 1989	279
	The 'Special Period in Peacetime', 1990	286
	The third exodus: the riot on the Malecon, August 1994	298
	The Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts, 1992 and 1996	300
	Pope John Paul's visit to Havana, 1998	306
	The case of Elian Gonzalez, 1999	310
	Dissent and opposition, 1991-2003	314
	Cuba in the twenty-first century	317
	Epilogue	321
	Appendices	326
Appendix A	Letter from John Quincey Adams, US secretary of state, to Hugh Nelson, the American minister in Madrid, 23 April 1823	326
Appendix B	The Platt Amendment, 1902	327
Appendix C	Extracts from the Helms-Burton Act, 1996	329
	Notes	333
	Guide to further reading	360
	Photograph credits	363
	Index	364

Editorial Reviews

"This is an accessible and well researched account by Gott."—Richard Lapper, Financial Times

"Written with verve and scholarship, Cuba: A New History isthe best history yet of this beautiful West Indian Island."—Ian Thomson, Saturday Telegraph

"Richard Gott’s invaluable Cuba: A New History dispelsmany convenient myths."—Adam Feinstein, The Guardian

"An excellent addition to Hugh Thomas’s classic Cuba and other more recent histories, this book is highly recommended for public and academic libraries."—Library Journal

"This delightfully written, nicely illustrated book makes a significant contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Cuban revolution. Eight expertly crafted chapters and a short epilogue trace the fascinating, complex history of Cuba from its settlement by the Spanish in the early 16th century to the present. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice

"Gott is always an interesting, well-informed, and engaging writer."—Foreign Affairs

"Told with simplicity and a fresh synthesis. . . . A wonderful account combining powerful journalistic skills and insightful scholarship."—Eliseo Cardona, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

"The author should be commended for writing a balanced view of the often politically charged history of Cuba. This work will be of interest to those with limited knowledge of the island and its people who desire an introduction to its rich past. . . . Suitable for use in undergraduate courses."—William Van Norman, The Historian

Chosen as an "Outstanding" academic title in 2006 by Choice Magazine

From the Publisher

For at least a generation of Cuba watchers, the history of the Caribbean island nation began with Castro's revolution in 1959. Yet Cuba has a long and storied history as a Spanish colony, a target for navies and pirates from across the globe, a people struggling for independence, and an American-controlled republic, all before Fidel. Writing from a European perspective, British journalist/historian Gott provides a fresh if not entirely new history of Cuba, without American prejudices. Using secondary sources, Gott, who has written on revolutionary movements in Latin America, tells the intriguing history of 500 years of a nation dominated by two themes-internal security and external attack. Gott contends that the future of Cuba was set not under Castro, but during the slave importations of the 16th to the 18th centuries. He asserts that Cuba was moving toward an economic revolution even before Castro's rise to power. An excellent addition to Hugh Thomas's classic Cuba and other more recent histories, this book is highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal