Cuba: A Short History (Cambridge History of Latin America) (Paperback)

by Leslie Bethell (Editor) "The Spanish colony of Cuba in the mid-eighteenth century was a largely forested, half unmapped island..." (more)
Key Phrases: revolutionary rule, reciprocity treaty, United States, Fidel Castro, Soviet Union (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Cuba: A Short History, edited by Leslie Bethell, is the best brief history of Cuba available. It is recommended for undergraduate classes and for readers with an interest in a nation that has had a tremendous diplomatic and cultural impact on the United States....As a general introduction, this book is commendable." Thomas Zoumaras, History

Product Description
Cuba: A Short History brings together four chapters from Volumes 3, 5, and 7 of The Cambridge History of Latin America to provide for scholars, students and general readers a concise history of this important island nation. Contributors, top scholars in the field, trace the political, economic, and social development of Cuba from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present day. The concluding chapter, updated for this volume, considers the dilemmas and challenges that Castro's Cuba faces in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. Each chapter is accompanied by a bibliographical essay that many readers will find useful.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (March 26, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521436826
• ISBN-13: 978-0521436823
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #655,906 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Only Academic Historians Could Make Cuba this Boring!, October 10, 2002

By A Customer

I used this book in a Cuban history course that I taught last year, and man did the students hate it. This collection of 4 articles from the multi-volume Cambridge History of Latin America is meant to provide a concise overview of Cuban history. But they begin in the 1600s, missing the first several hundred years, and end in the 1970s, missing the last two pivotal decades. The articles themselves are informative enough, but so boring and poorly written as to make the reader weep. This is an awful book.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There is such a thing as a TOO SHORT HISTORY, October 19, 1999

By	"lamanzini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

I was surprised to find a so-called history book should skip the first two hundred years of any country. At the beginning of this "history" we are hurtled into the mid-eighteenth century with absolutely no preamble; no background as to what came before. Where is the history of the discovery of the island, the natives who inhabited it, the process by which we arrived at the 18th century? Add to this the fact that each successive event is treated so lightly, with scant detail and such pompous, overblown language, and you can understand why I simply put it down after a few chapters and have not picked it up since. My advise?: If you really want to learn about Cuba, don't bother with this comic book sketch.

4.0 out of 5 stars Yes, it is a "Short Story", March 31, 2009

By	Carlos T. Mock "carloschicago" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Nothing like the British (Cambridge University Press) to tell history as they see it fit. This book is an excellent reference book if you use it alongside others. I used it with Argote Freyre's Fulgencio Batista, and Ignacio Ramonet's Fidel Castro, Biografía a Dos Voces to write my soon to be released book: Cuba Libre, "Mentirita"