Book description
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 the extraordinary revolution of Fidel Castro.
Throughout this period of over two hundred years, Hugh Thomas
analyses the political, economic and social events that have shaped
Cuban history with extraordinary insight and panache, covering
subjects ranging from sugar, tobacco and education to slavery, war and
occupation.
Encyclopaedic in range and breathtaking in execution, Cuba is
surely one of the seminal works of world history.
'An astonishing feat ... the author does more to explain the
phenomenon of Fidel's rise to power than anybody else has done so far'
- Spectator
'Brilliant' - The New York Times
'Immensely readable. Thomas's notion of history's scope is generous,
for he has not limited himself to telling old political and military
events; he describes Cuban culture at all stages ... not merely
accessible but absorbing. His language is witty but never mocking,
crisp but never harsh' - New Yorker
'Thomas seems to have talked to everybody not dead or in jail, and
read everything. He is scrupulously fair' - Time
Hugh Thomas is the author of, among other books, The
Spanish Civil War (1962), which won the Somerset Maugham Award,
Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom (1971), An Unfinished History
of the World (1979), and the first two volumes of his Spanish
Empire trilogy, Rivers of Gold (2003) and The Golden Age (2010).
Hugh Thomas is the author of, among other books,
The Spanish Civil
War
(1962), which won the Somerset Maugham Award,
Cuba: The Pursuit of
Freedom
(1971),
An Unfinished History of the World
(1979), and the first volume of his Spanish Empire trilogy,
Rivers
of Gold
(2003). In 2008 he was made a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres
in France and in 2009 received the Calvo Serer Prize in Spain and the
Bonino Prize in Italy. He was director of the Centre for Policy Studies
in London from 1979 to 1991, and he became a life peer as Baron Thomas
of Swynnerton in 1981.
