In 1949, a group of villagers and ad hoc archaeologists dug up what they believed to be the remains of the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtemoc, in a remote... village in the mountains of central Mexico. State and local leaders enthusiastically promoted this remarkable discovery and nationalist celebrations erupted throughout the country. The festivities ended abruptly when professional Mexican archaeologists denied that the body was that of Cuauhtemoc, igniting what became the greatest scandal in the cultural politics of twentieth-century Mexico. Suddenly, Cuauhtemoc's bones were at the center of debates about the politics and mechanisms of Mexican national identity.In this engaging study, Paul Gillingham uses the revelation of the forgery of Cuauhtemoc's tomb and the responses it evoked as a means of examining the set of ideas, beliefs, and dreams that bind societies to the nation-state.

This entertaining history of Cuba and its music begins with the collision of Spain and Africa and continues through the era of Miguelito Valdés,... Arsenio Rodríguez, Benny Moré, and Pérez Prado. It offers a behind-the-scenes examination of music from a Cuban point of view, unearthing surprising, provocative connections and making the case that Cuba was fundamental to the evolution of music in the New World. The ways in which the music of black slaves transformed 16th-century Europe, how the claves appeared, and how Cuban music influenced ragtime, jazz, and rhythm and blues are revealed. Music lovers will follow this journey from Andalucía, the Congo, the Calabar, Dahomey, and Yorubaland via Cuba to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Saint-Domingue, New Orleans, New York, and Miami. The music is placed in a historical context that considers the complexities of the slave trade; Cuba's relationship to the United States; its revolutionary political traditions; the music of Santería, Palo, Abakuá, and Vodú; and much more.

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.

Spanning the history of the island from pre-Columbian times to the present, this highly acclaimed survey examines Cuba's political and economic... development within the context of its international relations and continuing struggle for self-determination. The dualism that emerged in Cuban ideology--between liberal constructs of patria and radical formulations of nationality--is fully investigated as a source of both national tension and competing notions of liberty, equality, and justice. Author Louis A. Pérez, Jr., integrates local and provincial developments with issues of class, race, and gender to give students a full and fascinating account of Cuba's history, focusing on its struggle for nationality.New to this Edition* Features the latest research on Cuba, integrating the developments of the last two decades into the larger narrative flow of Cuban history* Places the circumstances of daily life in historical context and discusses their contemporary significance * Offers a fully revised and updated political chronology * Condenses and expands the extensive bibliography where necessary, highlighting the scholarship of the past decade

Spanning the history of the island from pre-Columbian times to the present, this highly acclaimed survey examines Cuba's political and economic... development within the context of its international relations and continuing struggle for self-determination. The dualism that emerged in Cuban ideology--between liberal constructs of patria and radical formulations of nationality--is fully investigated as a source of both national tension and competing notions of liberty, equality, and justice. Pérez integrates local and provincial developments with issues of class, race, and gender to give readers a full and fascinating account of Cuba's history, focusing on its struggle for nationality. This third edition features the latest research on Cuba, including a new chapter on post-Cold War Cuba that covers the years 1995 through 2004. The political chronology has been revised and updated and the extensive bibliography has been both condensed, where necessary, and expanded to highlight the scholarship of the past decade. The book now features photographs throughout and five maps.

From America’s number one Cuba reporter, PEN award–winning investigative journalist Ann Louise Bardach, comes the big book on Cuba we’ve all been... waiting for. An incisive and spirited portrait of the twentieth century’s wiliest political survivor and his fiefdom, Cuba Confidential is the gripping story of the shattered families and warring personalities that lie at the heart of the forty-three-year standoff between Miami and Havana.Famous to many Americans for her cover stories and media appearances, Ann Louise Bardach has been covering Cuba for a decade. She’s talked to the crooks, spooks and politicians who have made history, and to their hired assassins and confidants. Based on exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, his sister Juanita, his former brother-in-law Rafael Díaz-Balart, the family of Elián González, the friends and family of the legendary American fugitive Robert Vesco, the intrepid terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, and the inner circles of Jeb Bush and the late exile leader Jorge Mas Canosa, Cuba Confidential exposes the hardball take-no-prisoners tactics of the Cuban exile leadership, and its manipulation and exploitation by ten American presidents.Bardach homes in on Fidel Castro and his cronies, taking us closer than we’ve ever been—and on the militant exiles who have devoted their lives, with CIA connivance, to trying to eliminate him. From Calle Ocho to Juan Miguel González’s kitchen table in Cárdenas, from Guantánamo Bay to Union City to Washington, D.C., Ann Louise Bardach serves up an unforgettable portrait of Cuba and its exiles.From the Hardcover edition.

In Jaime Suchlicki’s engaging style, Cuba: From Columbus to Castro and Beyond provides a detailed and sophisticated understanding of the Cuba of... yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In addition to its concise narrative history, CUBA details the current political climate, economy, and the regime’s future. Suchlicki discusses the domestic and international events that have affected this island nation in recent years. This highly readable history is perfect for students, travelers, and anyone else who seeks to understand more about Cuba and its people.

For more than two hundred years, Americans have imagined and described Cuba and its relationship to the United States by conjuring up a variety of... striking images--Cuba as a woman, a neighbor, a ripe fruit, a child learning to ride a bicycle. Louis A. Perez Jr. offers a revealing history of these metaphorical and depictive motifs and discovers the powerful motives behind such characterizations of the island as they have persisted and changed since the early nineteenth century. Drawing on texts and visual images produced by Americans ranging from government officials, policy makers, and journalists to travelers, tourists, poets, and lyricists, Perez argues that these charged and coded images of persuasion and mediation were in service to America's imperial impulses over Cuba.

For more than two hundred often turbulent years, Americans have imagined and described Cuba and its relationship to the United States by conjuring up a... variety of striking images—Cuba as a woman, a neighbor, a ripe fruit, a child learning to ride a bicycle. One of the foremost historians of Cuba, Louis A. Pérez Jr. offers a revealing history of these metaphorical and depictive motifs and discovers the powerful motives behind such characterizations of the island. Pérez analyzes the dominant images and their political effectiveness as they have persisted and changed since the early nineteenth century. Drawing on texts and visual images produced by Americans ranging from government officials, policy makers, and journalists to travelers, tourists, poets, and lyricists, Pérez argues that metaphor was central to the U.S. imperial project as a way of transforming the pursuit of national self-interest into the lofty, disinterested purpose of moral duty. With particular focus on the pivotal eras of the war of 1898 and the 1959 Cuban revolution, Pérez demonstrates that these descriptions served the foreign policy interests of the United States. As charged and coded modes of persuasion and mediation, these images sanctioned and sustained the moral logic of U.S. power over Cuba. Pérez further argues that the metaphors in service to America's imperial impulses over Cuba were subsequently projected over the world at large.

"This book is a masterpiece. Accurate, lyrical, and empathetic in its illumination of the lives of ordinary Cubans, as they survive and thrive in the... bizarre economic and political environment of Cuba during its 'Special Period.'"--Archibald Ritter, Carleton University Amelia Weinreb takes readers deep inside the everyday life of middle-class Cubans--arguably the majority of citizens on the island. Un-theorized and under-described, it is a group that is portrayed honestly, accurately, and empathetically. The political and economic systems of Cuba in the post-Soviet period pose ongoing challenges to ordinary Cubans as they struggle in the waning years of the Castro regime. Weinreb demonstrates that the major reason they have been ignored in the scholarly literature is because remaining obscure is one of their strategies for coping with these challenges. Weinreb has made repeated visits to the island, frequently living in local communities along with her family. Thus her ethnography of this "shadow public" is based upon traditional participant-observer methodology. Her experiences--from the clothesline, the back bedroom, the kitchen table, and the living room sofa--allow her an unprecedented opportunity to bring to outside readers the reality of daily life in Cuba, and she includes an epilogue that addresses citizen and consumer changes that have taken place since Raúl Castro became president in February 2008. No other book reveals so much about the anxieties and clandestine plans that have shaped Cubans' lives during the final years of the Fidel Castro era. Amelia Rosenberg Weinreb is a lecturer in the department of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.

From the moment Fidel Castro captures Havana in 1959, seventeen-year-old Sonya believes in the promise of the Cuban Revolution. A medical student who... dreams of becoming a painter, she joins the militia and finds herself caught between idealism and ideology. As a medic at the Bay of Pigs, she's stunned to find a lost love on the other side of the battlefield - and then finds herself imprisoned and tortured by her own comrades. Physically and emotionally scarred upon returning home, Sonya tries to find fulfillment in art. But when she realizes that none of her efforts, by gun or brush, fall in line with Castro's regime, Sonya must make a series of agonizing choices between her family, her lover, and her beloved country. This graphic novel is based on a true story.

The earliest films made in Cuba-newsreel footage of the Cuban-Spanish-American War-date from the end of the nineteenth century, but Cuba cannot be said... to have had an indigenous film industry before the revolution of 1959. The melodramas, musicals, and comedies made until then reflected Hollywood's-and the United States's-cultural domination of the island, but the revolution precipitated urgent debates about the role of cinema in a socialist country and the kinds of films best suited to the needs of the people and their rulers. Among the feature films, documentaries, and short subjects made in accordance with revolutionary principles are celebrated works by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Humberto Solás, and other filmmakers who have had a profound influence on both Latin American and world cinema. Michael Chanan provides a comprehensive, authoritative, and absorbing account of Cuban cinema both before and after the revolution, deftly setting individual films and filmmakers within the larger framework of Cuba's social, political, and cultural history. First published as The Cuban Image in 1984 to wide acclaim, Cuban Cinema now appears in a new, expanded edition that updates Chanan's discussion to the beginning of the twenty-first century. New chapters address ongoing concerns about freedom of expression; Havana's restored importance within the Latin American film industry through the Havana Film Festival, before state support for filmmakers dwindled in the economic collapse that followed the fall of the Soviet Union; Cuban cinema's place within the globalized cultural market; and the changing audience for Cuban films. The only book-length study of Cuban cinema written in English, this indispensable work on one of the world's most vital national cinemas offers a unique perspective on the Cuban experience in the twentieth century. Michael Chanan is a documentary filmmaker and professor of cultural and media studies at the University of the West of England in Bristol.

Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha: An Ethnography of Racial Meanings offers a provocative look at what it means to belong in modern socialist Cuba.... Drawn from her extensive travels throughout Cuba over the past decade, author L. Kaifa Roland pulls back the curtain on a country that has remained mysterious to Americans since the mid-twentieth century. Through vivid vignettes and firsthand details, Roland exposes the lasting effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent rise of state-sponsored segregated tourism in Cuba. She demonstrates how the creation of separate spheres for locals and tourists has had two effects. First, tourism reestablished the racial apartheid that plagued pre-revolutionary Cuba. Second, it reinforced how the state's desire to maintain a socialist ideology in face of its increasing reliance on capitalist tools is at odds with the day-to-day struggles--or La Lucha--of the Cuban people. Roland uses conversations and anecdotes gleaned from a year of living among locals as a way of delving into these struggles and understanding what constitutes life in Cuba today. In exploring the intersections of race, class, and gender, she gives readers a better understanding of the common issues of status and belonging for tourists and their hosts in Cuba.Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha is one of several volumes in the Issues of Globalization: Case Studies in Contemporary Anthropology series, which examines the experiences of individual communities in our contemporary world. Each volume offers a brief and engaging exploration of a particular issue arising from globalization and its cultural, political, and economic effects on certain peoples or groups. Ideal for introductory anthropology courses--and as supplements for a variety of upper-level courses--these texts seamlessly combine portraits of an interconnected and globalized world with narratives that emphasize the agency of their subjects.

"Cuban Communism remains, like its previous ten editions, an important contribution to the field of Cuban Studies. It includes many useful... chronological facts, as well as a selection of Fidel Castro's speeches which are interesting and informative for any reader interested in the island." -- Maria Gropas, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge This new 11th edition of a classic text, come to be known as "the bible of Cuban Studies," emphasizes two key issues of the twenty-first century. First, transition concerns in a world without Castro, and second, the continuing embargo of Cuba by the United States in the aftermath of a major change in the presidency. Cuban Communism has been updated to take account of changes in the 44 years of Castro's rule since seizing power in 1959. In addition to articles and essays that represent new developments in Cuba, the work boasts a database upgrade that makes it more important to students, scholars, and researchers. The volume has expanded the section on future prospects for civil society and democracy in a post-Castro environment; including "Regime Change in Cuba" by Eusebio Mujal-Leon and Joshua W. Busby; "Transition Scenarios" by Randolph H. Pherson, and "A Policy Conundrum over Cuba" by Edward Gonzalez. It also contains a chronology of events from 1959 through 2002. Finally, the new work contains a carefully constructed Who's Who of important players in Cuba and the regime during the Castro period up to the present. Other articles new to the 11th edition of Cuban Communism are by Ernesto Betancourt, "Cuba's Balance of Payment Gap"; Carmelo Mesa-Lago, "The Cuban Economy From 1999-2001"; Taylor Boas, "The Internet and U.S. Policy toward Cuba"; Aldo M. Leiva, "Environmental Technology Transfer and Foreign Investment"; Moises Asis, "Judaism in Cuba"; Wolf Grabendorff, "A View from the European Union." More than ever, it is a must volume for those interested in political systems and social structures. Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University. Among his works are Three Worlds of Development, Beyond Empire and Revolution, and his Bacardi Lectures on Cuba that was published as The Conscience of Worms and the Cowardice of Lions. Jaime Suchlicki is Bacardi Professor of History at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Miami, and executive director of its Cuban-American and Cuban Center. He is author of From Columbus to Castro, University Students and Revolution in Cuba, and Mexico: From Montezuma to Nafta and Beyond.