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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Annelie Geissler
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Politics & government

CUBA

Ada Ferrer

An American History

An epic, sweeping history of Cuba and its complex and intimate ties to the United States - from the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the present day - written by celebrated New York University professor and daughter of Cuban immigrants.

CUBA: An American History tells the story of how Europe's longest-lived colony became so intricately tied to the United States. How a place that on several occasions almost became a US state and that for a long time served as a favorite haunt of American mobsters and missionaries, honeymooners, and businessmen reinvented itself as a Soviet ally, brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction, outlived the Soviet Union, and now once again beckons American travelers and investors.
Starting with the arrival of Columbus and ending with the death of Fidel Castro and the election of Donald Trump in 2016, this book will prompt American readers to rethink their assumptions of Cuba. In the process, it will give them a view of their own country through the eyes of another. For Cubans sitting on the cusp of the greatest change in more than a half a century, the book presents a history of Cuba that heeds Howard Zinn's old admonition not to accept the memory of states as our own.

Ada Ferrer is one of the world's leading historians of Cuba. Ferrer is Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, where she has taught since 1995. She is the author of Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 18681898, which won the 2000 Berkshire Book Prize for the best first book by a woman in any field of history, and Freedom's Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution, which won the Frederick Douglass Prize from the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University, as well as multiple prizes from the American Historical Association. Born in Cuba and raised in the U.S., she has been traveling to and conducting research on the island regularly since 1990.

Available products
Book Published 2021-06-01 by Scribner
Book Published 2021-06-01 by Scribner

Comments

With singular mastery and insight, Ada Ferrer reconstructs the intertwined histories of Cuba and the United States. It is an intimate and timely story, of conflict and misunderstandings, but also of opportunities and possibilities.

Timely . . . revealing . . . moving.

Masterful.

Important . . . Rather than putting geopolitics or 'great men' at the heart of the book, Ferrer's focus is on the Cuban people, the descendants of whom are calling for libertad.

Exemplary . . . [full of] lively insights and lucid prose.

Ada Ferrer has written a sweeping, beautiful, and indispensable history of an endlessly fascinating country. Cuba captures the breadth and emotion of the story of a small country that has been at the center of so many big events and trends that have shaped our world

Intriguing and nuanced.

Ada Ferrer's astonishing Cuba succeeds brilliantly with an original approach, written in two voices, folded together seamlessly - one personal, from the depths of family transplantation, and the other a historian's lyrical narrative. She captures the epic sweep of the island's story of slavery, massive sugar production, colonialism, and revolution. But she also shows how Cuba and the United States have so long been joined at the hip in shared culture, political crises, and tragedy for the famous and the ordinary. Ferrer's own 'heavy inheritance' is North America's as well. Above all, Ferrer has achieved a page-turning masterpiece of her craft; rarely is good history this kind of literary performance.

So near and yet so far. We think we know Cuba but this book reveals that we have never grasped its epic and frequently tragic history. Ada Ferrer offers us the penetrating perspective of someone who is neither the complete insider nor the complete outsider, but who cares passionately about Cuba and its confounding entanglement with the US.

Monumental.

In clear and elegant prose, Ada Ferrer, a leading historian of Cuba, vividly brings to life the history of Cuba. I now have an unequivocal answer to those who ask me to recommend a book that will introduce them to the island nation, as well as a clear choice when selecting a text that will engage my students in the dramatic story of Cuba.

Ada Ferrer's CUBA is co-winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History!

A riveting, nuanced, and insightful story told through a multitude of personalities - from the well-known to those whose names have been lost to the historical record. This is the story of Cuba finally presented in all the complexity it deserves: an American story that is inseparable from the story of the United States. Dr. Ferrer is a gift, a historian with the subtle prose gifts of a world-class novelist and the heart and sweep to tell a story that is both personal and epic. This clear-eyed chronicle reveals the Cuba in the United States and the United States in Cuba. It is a book that will forever change your perspective on the historic relationship between the two countries and upend much of the history you thought you knew. An absolutely essential read.

Ada Ferrer makes Cuba's American history come to life. Whatever you may think of the politics around Cuba, its rich and complex history and that of its people is told here in a thoughtful and compelling way, with revealing detail, deep research, and beautiful writing.

Ada Ferrer's Cuba is a remarkable work of history. Covering more than five centuries and much of the Atlantic world, Cuba is also deeply thoughtful and highly personal in a way that truly enriches it. Imaginatively conceived and beautifully written, Cuba tells complex human stories in riveting ways and challenges our understanding of an island whose history has shaped - and will continue to shape - the Americas. Cuba is An American History in the fullest sense.

A moving chronicle.