Cuba
A Cultural History
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- US$22.99
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- US$22.99
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As American-Cuban relations begin to warm, tourists are rushing to discover the throwback tropical paradise just eighty miles off of the American coast. But even as diplomatic relations are changing and the country opens up to the Western world, Cuba remains a rare and fascinating place.
Cuba: A Cultural History tells the story of Cuba’s history through an exploration of its rich and vibrant culture. Rather than offer a timeline of Cuban history or a traditional genre-by-genre history of Cuban culture, Alan West-Durán invites readers to enter Cuban history from the perspective of the island’s uniquely creative cultural forms. He traces the restless island as it ebbs and flows with the power, beauty, and longings of its culture and history.
In a world where revolutionary socialism is an almost quaint reminder of the decades-old Cold War, the island nation remains one of the few on the planet guided by a Communist party, still committed to fighting imperialism, opposed to the injustices of globalization, and wedded to the dream of one day building a classless society, albeit in a distant future. But as this book shows, Cuba is more than a struggling socialist country—it is a nation with a complex and turbulent history and a rich and varied culture.
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West-Dur n, associate professor of cultures, societies, and global studies at Northeastern University, encourages travelers, actual or armchair, to move toward an understanding of Cuba's unique cultural heritage, which has been forged by the melding of Spanish and African traditions and by extremes of capitalism and communism. Moving from 1898, when Cuba gained its independence from Spain, to the 21st century, West-Dur n surveys the country's cultural development, setting out each era's historical context and then discussing its cultural achievements. This is a fruitful approach, as it allows readers to understand the reciprocal relationship between politics and cultural expression. It also merits praise for conceiving of culture as including not only the works of writers, artists, filmmakers, and composers, but also the cultural work of ordinary people, such as the Afro-Cuban spiritual practices that syncretize Catholic and West African traditions and songs that confront the racism that has persisted despite great societal changes under revolutionary socialism. West-Dur n manages to pack this relatively short book with an impressive density of material, and his graceful, lucid style prevents it from becoming overwhelming. Readers fascinated by and interested in Cuba should find this book to be of great value in understanding a complex and often contradictory society.
