Cuba in the American Imagination

by Louis A. Pérez Jr.

For more than two hundred often turbulent years, Americans have imagined and described Cuba and its relationship to the United States by conjuring up a variety of striking images—Cuba as a woman, a neighbor, a ripe fruit, a child learning to ride a bicycle. One of the foremost historians of Cuba, Louis A. Pérez Jr. offers a revealing history of these metaphorical and depictive motifs and discovers the powerful motives behind such characterizations of the island.

Pérez analyzes the dominant images and their political effectiveness as they have persisted and changed since the early nineteenth century. Drawing on texts and visual images produced by Americans ranging from government officials, policy makers, and journalists to travelers, tourists, poets, and lyricists, Pérez argues that metaphor was central to the U.S. imperial project as a way of transforming the pursuit of national self-interest into the lofty, disinterested purpose of moral duty. With particular focus on the pivotal eras of the war of 1898 and the 1959 Cuban revolution, Pérez demonstrates that these descriptions served the foreign policy interests of the United States. As charged and coded modes of persuasion and mediation, these images sanctioned and sustained the moral logic of U.S. power over Cuba. Pérez further argues that the metaphors in service to America's imperial impulses over Cuba were subsequently projected over the world at large.

Genres: History

Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

Louis A. Pérez Jr. is the J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the Editor of the Cuban Journal.

Principal research interests center on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Caribbean, with emphasis on Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Current research project explores the sources of Cuban nationality and identity.

Reviews

[Bookclubcheerleader · Rating 2 out of 5]

OMG-This reads like someone's thesis. It is not written for an "Everytday" audience...

[Michele]

So far, so great--it looks like this book is an excellent study of the history of U.S. attitudes and policy toward Cuba, and for the visually oriented, it includes a great (and telling) collection of political cartoons dating back to the beginning of the U.S. relationship with this beleaguered Caribbean island nation. Perez in an impressive scholar.

[Jason S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well sourced (although a bit too much at times) look at use of metaphors as a factor shaping US-Cuba policy. Amazing catalogue of political cartoons inside.

[Steve Middendorf]

I'd like to see Goodreads functionality that lets me record pre-reading information about a book: how and where I found about it and the context of why I decided to read it. My to-read list is long many times, by the time I get around to reading a book, I'd like to recall how I came to that point.

This book came out of a fivebooks.com interview with A.G. Hopkins on American Imperialism.