Thorndike Press
Cuba: An American History
Key Metrics
- Ada Ferrer
- Thorndike Press
- Hardcover
- 9781432894924
- -
- -
- History > Caribbean & West Indies - Cuba
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
An epic, sweeping history of Cuba and its complex ties to the United States--from before the arrival of Columbus to the present day--written by one of the world's leading historians of Cuba.
In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued--through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country's future. Meanwhile, politics in Washington--Barack Obama's opening to the island, Donald Trump's reversal of that policy, and the election of Joe Biden--have made the relationship between the two nations a subject of debate once more.
Now, award-winning historian Ada Ferrer delivers an ambitious and moving chronicle written for a moment that demands a new reckoning with both the island's past and its relationship with the United States. Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba: An American History provides us with a front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation, with its dramatic record of conquest and colonization, of slavery and freedom, of independence and revolutions made and unmade.
Along the way, Ferrer explores the sometimes surprising, often troubled intimacy between the two countries, documenting not only the influence of the United States on Cuba but also the many ways the island has been a recurring presence in US affairs. This, then, is a story that will give American readers unexpected insights into the history of their own nation and, in so doing, help them imagine a new relationship with Cuba.
Filled with rousing stories and characters, and drawing on more than thirty years of research in Cuba, Spain, and the United States--as well as the author's own extensive travel to the island over the same period--this is a stunning and monumental account like no other.
Author Bio
Ada Ferrer is Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, where she has taught since 1995.
She is the author of Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868–1898, winner of the Berkshire Book Prize for the best first book by a woman in any field of history, and Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution, which won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize from the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University as well as multiple prizes from the American Historical Association.
Born in Cuba and raised in the United States, she has been traveling to and conducting research on the island since 1990.
Awards and Recognitions
2018 Guggenheim Fellowship; Dorothy Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library; 2015 Frederick Douglass Book Prize for the best book on slavery from the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Race, and Resistance; the 2015 Frederich Katz Prize for the best book in Latin American History from the American Historical Association, the 2015 Wesley-Logan Prize for the best book in African Diaspora history from the AHA , and the 2015 James Rawley Prize also from the AHA for the best book in Atlantic World History; the 2015 Haiti Illumination Book Prize from the Haitian Studies Association; Honorable Mention for the PROSE Award in European and World History.
John Hope Franklin Prize (Law and Society Association) for the Best Article on Race and Racism, 2013. Berkshire Conference Article Prize, 2013. Paul Vanderwood Prize, Conference on Latin American History, 2013. American Council of Learned Societes/NEH/SSRC Fellowship in Area Studies, 2011-2012, Berkshire Book Prize for Insurgent Cuba (for the best first book by a woman historian in any field of history), Spanish Ministry of Culture Fellowship, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2003-2004, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2000-2001
Research Interests
Cuba; comparative slavery, nationalism, revolution
Education
University of Michigan, PhD 1995
Source: New York University
Videos
Community reviews
Write a ReviewNo Community reviews