Cuba : A Short History (Cambridge History of Latin America)

Rating:
Summary: Only Academic Historians Could Make Cuba this Boring!
Review: I used this book in a Cuban history course that I taught last year, and man did the students hate it. This collection of 4 articles from the multi-volume Cambridge History of Latin America is meant to provide a concise overview of Cuban history. But they begin in the 1600s, missing the first several hundred years, and end in the 1970s, missing the last two pivotal decades. The articles themselves are informative enough, but so boring and poorly written as to make the reader weep. This is an awful book.

Rating:
Summary: There is such a thing as a TOO SHORT HISTORY
Review: I was surprised to find a so-called history book should skip the first two hundred years of any country. At the beginning of this "history" we are hurtled into the mid-eighteenth century with absolutely no preamble; no background as to what came before. Where is the history of the discovery of the island, the natives who inhabited it, the process by which we arrived at the 18th century? Add to this the fact that each successive event is treated so lightly, with scant detail and such pompous, overblown language, and you can understand why I simply put it down after a few chapters and have not picked it up since. My advise?: If you really want to learn about Cuba, don't bother with this comic book sketch.

Rating:
Summary: Only Academic Historians Could Make Cuba this Boring!
Review: I was surprised to find a so-called history book should skip the first two hundred years of any country. At the beginning of this "history" we are hurtled into the mid-eighteenth century with absolutely no preamble; no background as to what came before. Where is the history of the discovery of the island, the natives who inhabited it, the process by which we arrived at the 18th century? Add to this the fact that each successive event is treated so lightly, with scant detail and such pompous, overblown language, and you can understand why I simply put it down after a few chapters and have not picked it up since. My advise?: If you really want to learn about Cuba, don't bother with this comic book sketch.