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Cuba: A History
by
From award-winning historian Hugh Thomas, Cuba: A History is the essential work for understanding one of the most fascinating and controversial countries in the world.
Hugh Thomas's acclaimed book explores the whole sweep of Cuban history from the British capture of Havana in 1762 through the years of Spanish and United States domination, down to the twentieth century and ...more
Hugh Thomas's acclaimed book explores the whole sweep of Cuban history from the British capture of Havana in 1762 through the years of Spanish and United States domination, down to the twentieth century and ...more
Paperback, 1152 pages
Published
November 25th 2010
by Penguin
(first published March 1st 1971)
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This book is very big. It's also inadequate. I would not recommend this to anyone who wants to gain a general overview of the history of Cuba. It's also biased and spends a lot of time dwelling on the things it's biased against.
The author does a good summary of Cuba's early history and goes into quite a bit of detail about the slave trade. Packing the chapters out with extra info of events that happened outside of Cuba but that still affected important goings on on the island. Like the British a ...more
The author does a good summary of Cuba's early history and goes into quite a bit of detail about the slave trade. Packing the chapters out with extra info of events that happened outside of Cuba but that still affected important goings on on the island. Like the British a ...more
I admit I only read half of it (I was interested in Castro's antecedents and first months in power, so I only read starting from the fall of Machado in 1933 to october 1959) but this book is amazing. The research put into it is stunning. It is highly detailed, but it is able to leave only relevant information and form a coherent narrative where even if the reader does not remember each one of the details, they all serve a purpose to make us understand the context where the outstanding events hap
...more
Jul 11, 2018
Christopher Saunders
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2018-reads
Hugh Thomas's Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (first published in 1971, intermittently updated over the years) is a massive look at the island's tumultuous history, from the British occupation of Havana in 1762 through the early years of Castro's regime. When I say massive, I mean the first edition's over 1,600 pages. It's to Thomas's credit that, for all the painstaking depth he provides, the book's never boring. He charts Cuba's evolution under Spanish rule from a complacent slave colony to an is
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Más bien una visión de cómo España, Estados Unidos y la URSS han influido en la historia cubana que la historia cubana propiamente tal. De todos modos, un buen libro que a pesar del tamaño no aburre en su relato.
This is a comprehensive History of Cuba from 1762 to 1971. Although it has minor inaccuracies and a few typos, Thomas narrative is both entertaining and informative and easy to read despite the 1700+ pages. It covers the last 100+ years of the Spanish colonial period, the several wars for independence, and the days of the early Republic, with nearly the second half of the book covering the periods of the Batista and Castro dictatorships. Impressive is Thomas' coverage of the early days of the Cu
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Very boring and poorly structured. It is shamefully easy to lose salient points in a book like this.
Lo compré justo antes de mi viaje a Cuba. Quería empaparme de la historia de Cuba, tratar de comprender a ese pueblo encapsulado en el tiempo y de la magnánima figura de Castro. Si bien es la historia a grandes rasgos quedé perplejo ante ella. Existe una Cuba antes de Castro y una Cuba después de Castro. En la primera, Cuba siempre dependió o se sometió a países extranjeros como España o USA. En la segunda Cuba es independiente aunque aún arrastró su característica de dependencia ahora por la UR
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The book gives a thorough history of Cuba. It takes a while to read and digest all of the information. It's more for studying Cuba than it is for pleasure reading, but its a very satisfying read. Best read in combination with the Motorcycle Diaries and Che: A Revolutionary Life.
...more
Una historia de Cuba a partir de 1762, el año de la invasión inglesa, hasta después del colapso de la URSS. Fascinante, especialmente los años últimos de Batista y los primeros de Castro. Muy recomendable.
Impressive historical account of the people of Cuba, whose whole philosophy of life is revolution, and mostly for the sake of it.
VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!!!!!
VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!!!!!
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Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Hugh Swynnerton Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton, was a British historian and Hispanist.
Thomas was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset before taking a BA in 1953 at Queens' College, Cambridge. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. His 1961 book The Spanish Civil War won the Somerset Maugham Award for ...more
Hugh Swynnerton Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton, was a British historian and Hispanist.
Thomas was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset before taking a BA in 1953 at Queens' College, Cambridge. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. His 1961 book The Spanish Civil War won the Somerset Maugham Award for ...more
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