Historia de Cuba. Historia de las Antillas

Abstract

This ambitious volume is the first in a sweeping series devoted to the history of the Caribbean. Subsequent volumes promise to take on the histories of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the non-Hispanic Caribbean, and finally, a comparative study of the region. Organized thematically and comprised of chapters by a variety of Cuba scholars, it offers both an encyclopedic rehearsal of significant events and a series of analytical perspectives on particular themes. Readers looking for one or the other may be frustrated, but those prepared for a range of approaches will reap considerable rewards.Six sections take on themes including economy, society, politics, culture, and science. Within those sections, the authors proceed chronologically, most stopping short of the 1959 revolution, which gets its own brief chapter to close. The most interesting essays engage current historiographic conversations. Alejandro de la Fuente makes the case for a diversified economy prior to the advent of sugar. During much of the seventeenth century, Cuba produced cacao, tobacco, leather, and animal products, as well as food for local consumption. By arguing that Cuba was integrated into an early modern Atlantic economy rather than remaining singularly tied to Spain, de la Fuente challenges histories that have understood this period as one of crisis and contraction. In a chapter on science and scientific practices, Leida Fernández Prieto and Armando García González intervene in the debates of historians of science. Contending with interpretations that posit science as a tool of imperialist domination or as a measure of nationalist achievement, they argue compellingly that Cuba served as a laboratory for scientific production and that only exchange and interaction produce scientific knowledge. To suppose that science comes from one place and is transplanted to another, they argue, is to obscure the very processes at the root of the knowledge in question. Finally, while Rafael Rojas’s essay on intellectual life suffers from a proclivity to lean on long lists of authors, it provides a succinct account of the ideological and philosophical battlegrounds of the first decade of the revolution. His reading of the negotiations in the 1960s among different groups of intellectuals and the state help to clarify a complex moment.While the thematic organization can contribute detail and factual breadth to a broader narrative, it can also stunt deeper analysis. For example, the chapters that address population, economy, society, and politics all include the wars of independence as part of their narratives. In so doing, they highlight aspects often neglected in other accounts, such as the combined demographic effects of high rates of death during the wars and of immigration immediately following the wars. Race and citizenship, however, receive intermittent attention throughout the volume. Vanni Pettinà provides a rushed description that misses the ambivalent power of the myth of racial democracy as it justified the claims of those demanding racial equality as well as assertions that there was no place for discussions of race in the Cuban Republic. Similarly, since the press and politics have been relegated to distinct chapters, the authors miss an opportunity to suggest the ways that they might have mutually shaped and constituted one another. In addition, pressure to compile a comprehensive list of newspapers and films in the chapter on the press and cinema results in the neglect of the nature of receptivity, or readership, as well as of other forms of media such as radio or television. Some elements are lost altogether. One could read this entire volume and come away with the impression that, save a handful of writers and elite women who served as marriage partners, women played no role at all in Cuban history.The volume includes numerous beautifully reproduced images and maps. It will be a useful reference tool for any scholar seriously engaged with Cuban history or Carib-bean history. The rich perspectives set forth are sure to generate lively discussions.