The Cuban Republic and José Martí

The Cuban Republic and José Martí
Author: Mauricio A. Font
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2006
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780739112250

Jose Marti contributed greatly to Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain with words as well as revolutionary action. Although he died before the formation of an independent republic, he has since been hailed as a heroic martyr inspiring Cuban republican traditions.

José Martí, Mentor of the Cuban Nation

José Martí, Mentor of the Cuban Nation
Author: John M. Kirk
Publisher:
Total Pages: 201
Release: 1983
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780813008127

Venerated as the creator of Cuba's first republic, declared by Fidel Castro to be the "intellectual author" of the second revolution, revered by Cuban exiles as the premier visionary of the democratic Cuban state, Jose Marti (1853-95) was a prolific and eclectic writer and a practical philosopher. In Jose Marti: Mentor of the Cuban Nation, John M. Kirk leads us to a better understanding of "the purest man" of the Latin race and one of the most underrated political thinkers of modern times. As a scholarly statement, Kirk's work contributes to a necessary reappraisal of Marti; it is a quest after the true esencia martiana--the essence of Marti's sociopolitical thought. Kirk deliberately departs from a strictly theoretical viewpoint in his well-documented synthesis of Marti's theories. The result is partially an explanation for the Cuban leader's continued exaltation as the "apostle" of modern political movements of both the right and the left. Kirk reviews the formative experiences of Marti's youth through his letters and early literary endeavors to his deportation to Spain before the age of eighteen. Marti's observations from his travels on the realities of North American democracy and the struggles of Latin American nations to emerge from colonialism are used by Kirk to trace Marti's sociopolitical development, culminating in his aspirations for Cuba following its independence from Spain. Kirk clarifies Marti's visionary but quite specific designs for the moral foundation, social, political, and economic structures and policies of the liberated republic--concepts that Marti would have attempted to implement had he not been killed by Spanish forces. Marti's own words, here translated by Kirk, show a wise and compassionate leader dedicated to the welfare of all peoples.

The Cuba Reader

The Cuba Reader
Author: Aviva Chomsky
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2019-05-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1478004568

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.

Our America

Our America
Author: José Martí
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 451
Release: 1977
Genre: History
ISBN: 0853454957

Presents the celebrated Cuban revolutionary's thoughts on "Nuestra America," the Latin America Martí fought to make free.

Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
Author: Ada Ferrer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501154575

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN HISTORY “Full of…lively insights and lucid prose” (The Wall Street Journal) 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 “important” (The Guardian) and moving chronicle 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 is a story that will give Americans unexpected insights into the history of their own nation and, in so doing, help them imagine a new relationship with Cuba; “readers will close [this] fascinating book with a sense of hope” (The Economist). 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.

The Myth of José Martí

The Myth of José Martí
Author: Lillian Guerra
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2006-03-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807876380

Focusing on a period of history rocked by four armed movements, Lillian Guerra traces the origins of Cubans' struggles to determine the meaning of their identity and the character of the state, from Cuba's last war of independence in 1895 to the consolidation of U.S. neocolonial hegemony in 1921. Guerra argues that political violence and competing interpretations of the "social unity" proposed by Cuba's revolutionary patriot, Jose Marti, reveal conflicting visions of the nation--visions that differ in their ideological radicalism and in how they cast Cuba's relationship with the United States. As Guerra explains, some nationalists supported incorporating foreign investment and values, while others sought social change through the application of an authoritarian model of electoral politics; still others sought a democratic government with social and economic justice. But for all factions, the image of Marti became the principal means by which Cubans attacked, policed, and discredited one another to preserve their own vision over others'. Guerra's examination demonstrates how competing historical memories and battles for control of a weak state explain why polarity, rather than consensus on the idea of the "nation" and the character of the Cuban state, came to define Cuban politics throughout the twentieth century.

Walt Whitman and His Caribbean Interlocutors: José Martí, C.L.R. James, and Pedro Mir

Walt Whitman and His Caribbean Interlocutors: José Martí, C.L.R. James, and Pedro Mir
Author: Rafael Bernabe
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2021-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9004462740

Walt Whitman and His Caribbean Interlocutors: José Martí, C.L.R. James, and Pedro Mir explores the writings of Whitman and of three Caribbean authors who engaged with them: the Cuban writer and revolutionary José Martí; Trinidadian activist, historian and cultural critic C.L.R. James, and Dominican poet Pedro Mir.

Cuban Memory Wars

Cuban Memory Wars
Author: Michael J. Bustamante
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2021-02-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469662043

For many Cubans, Fidel Castro's Revolution represented deliverance from a legacy of inequality and national disappointment. For others—especially those exiled in the United States—Cuba's turn to socialism made the prerevolutionary period look like paradise lost. Michael J. Bustamante unsettles this familiar schism by excavating Cubans' contested memories of the Revolution's roots and results over its first twenty years. Cubans' battles over the past, he argues, not only defied simple political divisions; they also helped shape the course of Cuban history itself. As the Revolution unfolded, the struggle over historical memory was triangulated among revolutionary leaders in Havana, expatriate organizations in Miami, and average Cuban citizens. All Cubans leveraged the past in individual ways, but personal memories also collided with the Cuban state's efforts to institutionalize a singular version of the Revolution's story. Drawing on troves of archival materials, including visual media, Bustamante tracks the process of what he calls retrospective politics across the Florida Straits. In doing so, he drives Cuban history beyond the polarized vision seemingly set in stone today and raises the prospect of a more inclusive national narrative.

The Sugar King of Havana

The Sugar King of Havana
Author: John Paul Rathbone
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2010-08-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101458917

"Fascinating...A richly detailed portrait." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Known in his day as the King of Sugar, Julio Lobo was the wealthiest man in prerevolutionary Cuba. He had a life fit for Hollywood: he barely survived both a gangland shooting and a firing squad, and courted movie stars such as Joan Fontaine and Bette Davis. Only when he declined Che Guevara's personal offer to become Minister of Sugar in the Communist regime did Lobo's decades-long reign in Cuba come to a dramatic end. Drawing on stories from the author's own family history and other tales of the island's lost haute bourgeoisie, The Sugar King of Havana is a rare portrait of Cuba's glittering past—and a hopeful window into its future.

Syncing the Americas

Syncing the Americas
Author: Ryan Anthony Spangler
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2017-12-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1611488524

The essays in this collection reflect two of Martí’s key observations during his time in the United States: first, how did he, an exile living in New York, view and read his North American neighbors from a sociocultural, political and literary perspective? Second, how did his perception of the modern nation impact his own concepts of race, capital punishment, poetics, and nation building for Cuba? The overarching endeavor of this project is to view and read Martí with the same critical or modern eye with which he viewed and read Spain, Cuba, Latin America and the United States. This volume, combining many of the most relevant experts in the field of Martí studies, attempts to answer those questions. It hopes to broaden the understanding and extend the influence of one of Americas’ (speaking of the collective Americas) most prolific and important writers, particularly within the very nation where his chronicles, poetry, and journalism were written. In spite of the political differences still separating Cuba and the United States, understanding Martí's relevancy is crucial to bridging the gap between these nations.