Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

January 1, 2021

Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at NYU, Cuban-born, American-raised Ferrer assays 500 years of Cuban history at a crucial time: Fidel Castro is gone, Raul Castro has passed from power, and Donald Trump flip-flopped on Barack Obama's outreach to Cuba. Ferrer relates a long history of conquest, colonization, and revolution with an eye to the ongoing, troubled relationship between America and Cuba. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

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July 15, 2021
A fluid, consistently informative history of the long, inextricable link between Cuba and the U.S., well rendered by a veteran Cuban American historian. Ferrer, a Guggenheim fellow and professor of Latin American studies at NYU, explains that her chronicle is quintessentially "American" because to know Cuba is to grapple with the "sometimes intimate, sometimes explosive, always uneven relationship between the two countries." The author begins with the "origin myth" of Columbus, who, of course, never even landed in what is now the U.S. Coming ashore in Cuba, he and his men wiped out most of the Indigenous population and inaugurated a slave-based economy of sugar, tobacco, and rum that would decimate the island for centuries. Later, the fledgling U.S. profited enormously from that economy, and Ferrer reminds readers how Cuba supported the Colonial cause against Britain. President John Adams had his eye on annexing Cuba, but he did not want to provoke the British or Spanish; instead, the Monroe Doctrine was enacted in 1823 to keep European powers out of what the U.S. considered its domain. "Cuba--its sugar, its slavery, its slave trade--is part of the history of American capitalism," notes the author. Such proprietary zeal led the U.S. to help Cuba expel the Spanish, although Ferrer considers it a myth that the Americans won the island its independence from Spain. Indeed, the Americans wouldn't leave gracefully, forcing the new republic to accept the Platt Amendment. This only exacerbated tensions among revolutionary Cubans, who had grown sick of American exploitation and manipulation, especially since Americans owned so much Cuban land. Ferrer is an endlessly knowledgeable guide, and she is evenhanded in describing Fidel Castro's revolution and the fervid nationalism and periods of economic hardship after the American embargo. She is especially good in delineating how a distinct Cuban identity was forged over the centuries. A wonderfully nuanced history of the island nation and its often troubled dealings with its gigantic and voracious neighbor.

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September 1, 2021
North American historical lore about Cuba tends to focus on Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in 1898 and Fidel Castro's successful revolution in 1959. But Cuba and the U.S. have had a long and deep relationship from the moment Europeans descended on both. Ferrer (Freedom's Mirror, 2014) has produced an English-language history of Cuba remarkable not only for being comprehensive, but also eminently readable. Ferrer asserts that Cuba has always played an important role in U.S. history, particularly in the run-up to the Civil War, when pro-slavery forces were eager to annex Cuba to the U.S. as a slave state. Then came the Spanish-American War, which was to liberate Cuba from Spain, but ended up with an "independent" Cuba whose U.S.-imposed constitution allowed U.S. intervention at any time. By the outset of the twentieth century, most of Cuba's property was foreign-owned, setting the background for the revolution led by Fidel Castro, whose success came about almost by sheer luck. Castro's alliance with the Soviet Union amid Cold War animosities gave his revolution necessary economic and political support despite U.S. antagonism and the exodus of so many Cubans. Ferrer delves into deep background that students of contemporary history may have never before encountered.

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