Customer Reviews

Inside Cuba

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are looking for a book on Cuban politics and history, Look somewhere else. If you are looking for a book full of exquisit imagery and information detailing Cuban life, especially in the realms of art and architecture, this book is a must have. I own a copy of virtually every book that I've ever found on Cuban art & architecture and this is among the top five that I've ever found. Typical books of this quality sell for far more than this and often contain far less useful information.
As a graduate architecture student with a passion for Cuban architecture, I refer to this book in my research as well as for pleasure.

Okay, so you have bought a lot of books on Cuban architecture/interiors and cd's of Cuban music (sorry, no cd with this book) and you still want more of this exotic and taboo island. Well, you can buy this book and stop spending because it is more like comprehensive art history book in size, weight and content. The book should be in every academic library and required reading/viewing for every art/design student. Forget Tuscany or Provence, Cuba is where the real "rustica" is found in abundance without modern "gadgets" and updated kitchens and bathrooms.

The Cuban "novice" will be shocked to see a country still living in the Fifties with old American cars, tv's, oscillating fans instead of air conditioning, etc. It almost sickening the consumption/throwaway habits of ours and European societies when you see what these people get along with and still enjoy life. There is a nice profile of Ernest Hemingways old haunts in Havana, including hotels/bars and his home.

Unfortunately, a lot of books, including this one, about Cuban architecture and design feature the same homes and municipal buildings as if all the photographers are on the same tour or the Cuban government restricts them from photographing other places. The book is priced very nice for such a large and comprehensive book, but still not too big for your book shelf. Highly recommended, thanks to Taschen for publishing such great art books.

Excellent book. Could benefit from more text and specific location information (addresses) but great coverage and good photos. My wife and I used the information from the book on a recent visit.

Great book, it has very nice pictures of the architectures of the old colonial and new Cuban buildings. Unfortunately, the writer is very much infatuated with the current communist regime, and spoils all the good qualities of the Cuban art with his left wing preferences. I understand he is the writer, and he has the right to publish what he wants in his book. I do agree with some of the other reviewers, Cuba was a beautiful place at one time. However, like all the communist countries in the world you can see the awful results with the dilapidating unpainted buildings and everything else that comes with it. If you happen to be expose to the current Cuba, and find it fascinating, just imagine what it was like, many years ago before it was doomed by the current backward government. It was the pear of the Antilles! I'm sorry if I sound so right wing. But, I can't help myself. Because, I love freedom, and the good life; something that the envious ignorant left wing liberals never seem understand. The book is not bad. However, it could be much better.

The book Inside Cuba is very different from others. It gives you a little view inside a beautiful country. Buildings, rooms, furniture everything is if you're going back into time. The regime of Castro stopped the time and you find this definitely back in this book. Almost all the pictures are of very good quality. The only negative point is the lack of political and historical information. But overall it is a good book to get another view on Cuba.

Great book. No supercover, do not search, and that begins the style. I do not agree, that book displays the misery, serves regime, and that is something expected to be admired by 'leftists'.

For, to me, not unpainted walls, natural (though, yes, not "rich" as it is often understood) people are disastrous. Omnipresent agression of commerce IS.

There is no doubt, those people are more beautiful on inside, than those, who are rather on outside.

And Cuba can be land of clean, magnificent dreams, architecture and interiors for people, by people, ideas, derived from ideals - let it be imperfect, I can understand that part, still book is about departure into the other world. And that journey is impressive. With that book in my mind, I tried to compare it against many others, that were on shelves. I returned home with this book today, definite highlight of Taschen.

If in doubt, open it, and you will feel quickly if it is for you, or not. Hopefully, it is.

A wonderful book, marred by efigy of serial killer in the back cover. What a shame. The book is also peppered with photographs which are clearly the choice of an ignoramus who admires Castro and Guevara, without realizing that the beautiful ruins of Havana are their handiwork. Face it, Cuba was destroyed by the so called revolutionaries who terrorized a prosperous country and trasformed it into a Fourth World nightmare.
One can tell, that the selection of the photography depicting spies convicted in the United States, Castro and his brother Raul, and the international terrorist Che Guevara doesn't have anything to do with a very honest and informed text.
Gratuitiously, the editors try to ingratiate themselves with a left leaning public who finds rejoice in the misery of others. Nevermind that the back cover of the book will alienate many potential buyers who will not take a book into their houses if it has the anti-Cuban by excellence in its cover. Maybe Che Guevara is an appropiate image for a book on Buenos Aires, but I am afraid that the editors will get the backslash of the Argentinean public as well. Just compare the splendors of the Cuba of yesteryear with the present day mysery that looms over the whole country, I mean, over the part of the country that is reserved for Cubans, while the tourists benefit of a veritable apartheid.
Needless to say, Cubans leave their country every day, on fragile and unseaworthy rafts, to end up either being returned to Cuba, being eaten alives by sharks, or arriving in Florida -the luckier ones.
Those Cubans are young. They didn't know the Cuba of their grandparents. They only know the inferno created by Castro and his master executioner, Che Guevara. Will Taschen publish a book with the image of Hitler in the back cover? Of course not, Goering and Hitler are wounds still open in the German psyche. Instead, Castro and Guevara are really cool, according to the typical gospel of the liberal left.
By the way, many of the photos appeared to be recycled from Havana Style, another "Cuba is so quaint" book by Taschen.

Alberto Martinez
United States