Tracking Cuban history from 1492 to the present, The Cuba Reader includes more than one hundred selections that present myriad perspectives on Cuba's history, culture, and politics. The volume foregrounds the experience of Cubans from all walks of life, including slaves, prostitutes, doctors, activists, and historians. Combining songs, poetry, fiction, journalism, political speeches, and many other types of documents, this revised and updated second edition of The Cuba Reader contains over twenty new selections that explore the changes and continuities in Cuba since Fidel Castro stepped down from power in 2006. For students, travelers, and all those who want to know more about the island nation just ninety miles south of Florida, The Cuba Reader is an invaluable introduction.
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- I. Indigenous Society and Conquest
- Christopher Columbus “Discovers” Cuba, Christopher Columbus
- The Devastation of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas
- Spanish Officials and Indigenous Resistance, Various Spanish Officials
- A World Destroyed, Juan Pérez de la Riva
- “Transculturation” and Cuba, Fernando Ortiz
- Survival Stories, José Barreiro
- II. Sugar, Slavery, and Colonialism
- A Physician’s Notes on Cuba, John G. F. Wurdemann
- The Death of the Forest, Manuel Moreno Fraginals
- Autobiography of a Slave, Juan Francisco Manzano
- Biography of a Runaway Slave, Miguel Barnet
- Fleeing Slavery, Miguel Barnet, Pedro Deschamps Chapeaux, Rafael García, and Rafael Duharte
- Santiago de Cuba’s Fugitive Slaves, Rafael Duharte
- Rumba, Yvonne Daniel
- The Trade in Chinese Laborers, Richard Dana
- Life on a Coffee Plantation, John G. F. Wurdemann
- Cuba’s First Railroad, David Turnbull
- The Color Line, José Antonio Saco
- Abolition!, Father Félix Varela
- Cecilia Valdés, Cirilo Villaverde
- Sab, Gerturdis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga
- An Afro-Cuban Poet, Plácido
- III. The Struggle for Independence
- Freedom and Slavery, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
- Memories of a Cuban Girl, Renée Méndez Capote
- José Martí’s “Our America,” José Martí
- Guantanamera, José Martí
- The Explosion of the Maine, New York Journal
- U.S. Cartoonists Portray Cuba, John J. Johnson
- The Devastation of Counterinsurgency, Fifty-Fifth Congress, Second Session
- IV. Neocolonialism
- The Platt Amendment, President Theodore Roosevelt
- Imperialism and Sanitation, Nancy Stepan
- A Child of the Platt Amendment, Renée Méndez Capote
- Spain in Cuba, Manuel Moreno Fraginals
- The Independent Party of Color, El Partido Independiente de Color
- A Survivor, Isidoro Santos Carrera
- Rachel’s Song, Miguel Barnet
- Honest Women, Miguel de Carrión
- A Crucial Decade, Loló de la Torriente
- Afrocubanismo and Son, Robin Moore
- Drums in My Eyes, Nicolás Guillén
- Abakuá, Rafael López Valdés
- The First Wave of Cuban Feminism, Ofelia Domínguez Navarro
- Life at the Mill, Ursinio Rojas
- Migrant Workers in the Sugar Industry, Levi Marrero
- The Cuban Counterpoint, Fernando Ortiz
- The Invasion of the Tourists, Rosalie Schwartz
- Waiting Tables in Havana, Cipriano Chinea Palero and Lynn Geldof
- The Brothel of the Caribbean, Tomás Fernández Robaina
- Sugarcane, Nicolás Guillén
- Where Is Cuba Headed?, Julio Antonio Mella
- The Chase, Alejo Carpentier
- The Fall of Machado, R. Hart Phillips
- Sugar Mills and Soviets, Salvador Rionda
- The United States Confronts the 1933 Revolution, Sumner Welles and Cordell Hull
- The Political Gangster, Samuel Farber
- The United Fruit Company in Cuba, Oscar Zanetti and Alejandro García
- Cuba’s Largest Inheritance, Manuel Hernández Torres
- The Last Call, Eduardo A. Chibás
- Three Comandantes Talk It Over, Carlos Franqui
- History Will Absolve Me, Fidel Castro
- Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, Che Guevara
- The United States Rules Cuba, 1952–1958, Morris Morley
- The Cuban Story in the New York Times, Herbert L. Matthews
- V. Building a New Society
- Troubadours of the Revolution, Silvio Rodríguez
- Castro Announces the Revolution, Fidel Castro
- How the Poor Got More, Medea Benjamin, Joseph Collins, and Michael Scott
- Fish à la Grande Jardinière, Humberto Arenal
- Women in the Swamps, Margaret Randall
- Socialism and Man, Che Guevara
- In the Fist of the Revolution, José Yglesias
- The Agrarian Revolution, Medea Benjamin, Joseph Collins, and Michael Scott
- 1961: The Year of Education, Richard R. Fagen
- The Literacy Campaign, Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon
- The Family Code, Margaret Randall
- The Original Sin, Pablo Milanés
- Where the Island Sleeps Like a Wing, Nancy Morejón
- Silence on Black Cuba, Carlos Moore
- Black Man in Red Cuba, John Clytus
- Postmodern Maroon in the Ultimate Palenque, Christian Parenti
- From Utopianism to Institutionalization, Juan Antonio Blanco and Medea Benjamin
- VI. Culture and Revolution
- Caliban, Roberto Fernández Retamar
- For an Imperfect Cinema, Julio García Espinosa
- Dance and Social Change, Yvonne Daniel
- Revolutionary Sport, Paula Pettavino and Geralyn Pye
- In Hard Times, Heberto Padilla
- The Virgin of Charity of Cobre, Cuba’s Patron Saint, Olga Portuondo Zúñiga
- A Conversation on Santería and Palo Monte, Oscar Lewis, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon
- The Catholic Church and the Revolution, Ernesto Cardenal
- VII. The Cuban Revolution and the World
- The Venceremos Brigades, Sandra Levinson
- The Cuban Revolution and the New Left, Van Gosse
- The U.S. Government Responds to Revolution, Foreign Relations of the United States
- Castro Calls on Cubans to Resist the Counterrevolution, Fidel Castro
- Operation Mongoose, Edward Lansdale
- Offensive Missiles on That Imprisoned Island, President John F. Kennedy
- Inconsolable Memories: A Cuban View of the Missile Crisis, Edmundo Desnoes
- The Assassination Plots, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities
- Cuban Refugee Children, Monsignor Bryan O. Walsh
- From Welcomed Exiles to Illegal Immigrants, Felix Roberto Masud-Piloto
- Wrong Channel, Roberto Fernández
- City on the Edge, Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick
- Singing for Nicaragua, Silvio Rodríguez
- Cuban Medical Diplomacy, Julie Feinsilver
- VIII. The Período Especial
- Silvio Rodríguez Sings of the Special Period, Silvio Rodríguez
- Zippy Goes to Cuba, Bill Griffith
- “Special Period in Peacetime”: Economic and Labor Reforms, Susan Eva Eckstein
- The Revolution Turns Forty, Saul Landau
- Colonizing the Cuban Body, G. Derrick Hodge
- Pope John Paul II Speaks in Cuba, Pope John Paul II
- Elián González and the “Real Cuba” of Miami, Lillian Guerra
- Civil Society, Haroldo Dilla
- Forty Years Later, Senel Paz
- IX. Cuba after Fidel: Continuities and Transitions
- ECONOMY AND SOCIETY
- Raúl’s Reforms, Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva
- Emigration in the Twenty-First Century, Antonio Aja
- Tourism and the Many Faces of Havana’s Chinatown, Adrian H. Hearn
- The Antiracist Debate in Today’s Cuba, Zuleica Romay Guerra
- Afro-Cuban Activists Fight Racism between Two Fires, Sujatha Fernandes
- Race and Cuban Hip-Hop, Marc D. Perry
- The “Pavonato,” Marc Frank
- Short Stories, Laidi Fernández de Juan
- His Cigar, Marilyn Bobes
- Gender, Sexuality, and AIDS, Mariela Castro and Jorge Pérez
- A Theory of Reguetón, Iván de la Nuez
- 12/17 AND U.S.-CUBAN RELATIONS
- Spies, Counterspies, and Dissidents, Wikileaks and Tracey Eaton
- Francis, Obama, and Raúl, José Ángel Rodríguez López
- Obama and Us, Rafael Hernández
- “Visit Cuba before It Changes!,” Louis A. Pérez Jr
- PERSPECTIVES ON CUBA'S NEW REALITIES
- New Cuban Voices, Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada and Cristina Escobar
- “El Paquete”: Internet in Cuba, Víctor Fowler
- A New Film Law, G/20, Cuban Filmmakers’ Working Group
- So as Not to Throw Out the Sofa (Editorial Song), Silvio Rodríguez
- Spyglass, Dúo Buena Fe
- Commentaries on Fidel Castro’s Death, Rafael Hernández and Harold Cárdenas Lema
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- Acknowledgment of Copyrights and Sources
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
- Z
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