Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause [Hardcover]

Tom Gjelten (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 4, 2008

A unique history of Cuba, captured in the life and times of the famous rum dynasty
The Bacardis of Cuba, builders of a rum distillery and a worldwide brand, came of age with their nation and helped define what it meant to be Cuban. Across five generations, the Bacardi family has held fast to its Cuban identity, even in exile from the country for whose freedom they once fought. Now National Public Radio correspondent Tom Gjelten tells the dramatic story of one family, its business, and its nation, a 150-year tale with the sweep and power of an epic.
The Bacardi clan--patriots and "bon vivants," entrepreneurs and intellectuals--provided an example of business and civic leadership in its homeland for nearly a century. From the fight for Cuban independence from Spain in the 1860s to the rise of Fidel Castro and beyond, there is no chapter in Cuban history in which the Bacardis have not played a role. In chronicling the saga of this remarkable family and the company that bears its name, Tom Gjelten describes the intersection of business and power, family and politics, community and exile.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The commonplace view of Cuba's prerevolutionary business establishment as a corrupt kleptocracy is revised in this intriguing history of the Bacardi rum company and its involvement in Cuban politics. NPR correspondent Gjelten (Sarajevo Daily) paints the 146-year-old distiller, once an icon of Cuban industry, as a model corporate citizen—efficient, innovative, socially responsible and union-tolerant. Its leaders were pillars of nationalist politics, he contends: company president Emilio Bacardi was a leader of Cuba's rebellion against Spain, and in the 1950s CEO José Bosch helped fund Castro's insurrection. (After Castro nationalized Bacardi's Cuban holdings, Bosch started funding anti-Castro exiles.) Bacardi's image as Cuban-nationalism-in-a-bottle becomes farcical when the company, now a multinational behemoth, fights an absurd court battle with Cuba's state rum company over the Havana Club trademark. But Gjelten's account of a liberal, progressive Cuban business clan complicates and enriches the conventional picture of a society torn between right and left dictatorships. (Sept.)
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From The New Yorker

Facundo Bacardi, who founded the eponymous rum company in 1862, came to Cuba from Spain as a teen-ager. By the turn of the century, as Gjelten lucidly recounts, the distilling operation that Facundo had begun in a shed was among the brands most closely identified with Cuba, and the Bacardis became inextricably entangled with the nations history. Facundo?s eldest son, Emilio, fought to overthrow the Spanish, thus inaugurating the firms long tradition of promoting revolutionary and progressive politics. But the Bacardis, despite their enthusiastic support for Castros revolution, were forced into exile in Miami in the nineteen-sixties; benevolent capitalists had no place in the new Cuban paradigm. Today, the family owns a multibillion-dollar global corporation that contributes heavily to the Republican Party.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition edition (September 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067001978X
• ISBN-13: 978-0670019786
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #706,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

TOM GJELTEN is a veteran correspondent for NPR News, specializing in national security and international affairs. His overseas reporting experience include stints in Mexico City as NPR's Latin America correspondent from 1986 to 1990 and in Berlin as Central Europe correspondent from 1990 to 1994. During those years, he covered the wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Colombia, as well as the Gulf War of 1990-1991 and the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

With other NPR correspondents, Gjelten described the transitions to democracy and capitalism in Eastern Europe and the breakup of the Soviet Union. His reporting from Sarajevo from 1992 to 1994 was the basis for his book Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege (HarperCollins), praised by the New York Times as "a chilling portrayal of a city's slow murder. He is also the author of Professionalism in War Reporting: A Correspondent's View (Carnegie Corporation) and a contributor to Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (W. W. Norton).

Prior to his current assignment, Gjelten covered U.S. diplomacy and military affairs, first from the State Department and then from the Pentagon. He was reporting live from the Pentagon at the moment it was hit on September 11, 2001, and he was NPR's lead Pentagon reporter during the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. Gjelten has also reported extensively from Cuba in recent years, visiting the island more than a dozen times. His new book, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause (Viking), is a unique history of modern Cuba, told through the life and times of the Bacardi rum family. The book was selected by the New York Times as a "Notable Nonfiction Book of 2008" and it was named a "Best Book of the Year" by the Washington Post, the Kansas City Star, and the San Francisco Chronicle."

Since joining NPR in 1982 as labor and education reporter, Gjelten has won numerous awards for his work. His 1992 series "From Marx to Markets," documenting the transition to market economics in Eastern Europe, won an Overseas Press Club award for "Best Business or Economic Reporting in Radio or TV." His coverage of the wars in the former Yugoslavia earned Gjelten the Overseas Press Club's Lowell Thomas Award, a George Polk Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He was part of the NPR teams that won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for Sept. 11 coverage and a George Foster Peabody Award for coverage of the war in Iraq.

In addition to reporting for NPR, Gjelten is a regular panelist on the PBS program Washington Week. For more information, visit www.tomgjelten.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 48 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy the Kindle edition April 22, 2009

By Rooster

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is for the Kindle edition. The book is extremely well written. However, the Kindle edition, which is priced at only $2.50 less than the print edition, is a mess.

The Bacardí Family tree which appears at the beginning of the book is illegible. It appears legibly for less than a second and then fades to light gray. Unusable.

Nearly every time the name of Jose Martí appears, it has been conjoined with the word that follows it. "Martí published" becomes "Martípublished". There are some 64+ occurrences such as this. It becomes more than tiresome.

Also, there are ZERO photographs included in the Kindle edition. Mr.Gjelten did a grand job writing this book, but whoever Kindilized it did a pathetic job. Buy the print version.

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Rum, Dictators and how Bacardi survived October 14, 2008

By Joseph D. Policano

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a terrific book. It tells the tale of 150 years of Cuban and Bacardi history without burdening you with more facts, personalities , and anecdotes than you need to understand the company. In addition to the story of th Bacardi family it is a fast overview of how and why Cuba got to where it is today. Like most good
journalists,the author can compress a story yet give you the feeling that you know all the important stuff that needs to be known. The Bacardi family and company (it is still privately owned)certainly ranks as one of the most interesting and liberal I have ever come across reading about big businesses. They were not Johnnies come lately in the battle for Cuban freedom both from Spain and the native born dictators who followed after the American invaders left the island. They supported and financed the
Castro revolution and then had to flee the country when he turned into a communist dictator. They then fought him from the Bay of Pigs to this day.
At a time when Cuban workers were exploited under Spain and then under Cuban dictators, Bacardi seems to have been an enlightened employer providing its workers with benefits and security far beyond others.When one remembers that the company prospered under a series of ruthless and corrupt dictators who turned Havanna into a mafia controlled enclave, they seem all the more incredible that they could remain clean while they had so much mud around them In fact, with the exception of the rare philanderer or less than bright family member, the Bacardi family over this 150 year time span seems extraordinary for their compassion, accomplishments, and sense of duty and honor. Perhaps too extraordinary. Reading through the book I had to marvel how so many people could be so good over so many years. They make the Rockefellers seem like heartless aristocrats. The author received, by his own acknowledgement, priceless assistance from various family members who gave him unique access to their history and records and, understandably, this may have tilted him in their favor. But even with its flaws it still remains a very important book.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Document November 23, 2008

By Jose Sotolongo

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Tom Gjelten is a reporter for National Public Radio, with extensive background in foreign affairs. He shows is skill in understanding international relations with this masterful history of Cuba, from colonial days to the present. This is a beautifully documented history, with footnotes, a detailed list of sources, and a comprehensive index.

The history of the Cuban nation is interwoven with the history of the Bacardi family, from the first Catalan immigrant, Facundo Bacardi, to the present diaspora living in exile (except for Gilda and Gustavin, who I happened to know as a child, and who were and are sympathizers of the Castro regime and are still in Cuba). He dutifully relates the sequence of presidents and dictators of the island, with the social and political background of each regime. This may sound dull and perhaps too academic, but the struggle of the family throughout the history of the island gives it a personal and involving dimension.

In the last chapter, Gjelten speaks to the dynamics of the present political situation of Cuba, both from the point of view of the exile community, as well as from the needs of the post-Castro Cuban nation. This makes the book an important resource for anyone interested in being involved, either emotionally or in a practical, active way, in the future Cuba.