Showing posts with label cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cuba. Show all posts
Jun 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2016
Feb 2, 2015
Bacardi and the long fight for Cuba - Tom Gjelten
Summary: "The Bacardis of Cuba, builders of a rum distillery and a worldwide brand, came of age with their nation and helped define what it meant to be Cuban. Across five generations, the Bacardi family has held fast to its Cuban identity, even in exile from the country for whose freedom they once fought. The Bacardi clan--patriots and bon vivants, entrepreneurs and intellectuals--provided an example of business and civic leadership in its homeland for nearly a century. From the fight for Cuban independence from Spain in the 1860s to the rise of Fidel Castro and beyond, there is no chapter in Cuban history in which the Bacardis have not played a role. Here journalist Tom Gjelten tells the 150-year epic tale of this family, its business, and its nation, describing the intersection of business and power, family and politics, community and exile."--From publisher description.
Booklist Reviews
Reflecting Cuban history in that of the Bacardi rum company, NPR reporter Gjelten covers the business and political activities of the firm's leaders. Starting with its 1862 founding by Facundo Bacardi, Gjelten describes how this family-owned enterprise operated through Cuba's volatile sequence of wars with Spain, U.S. occupation, unstable governments, and, finally, expropriation by the Castro regime. Run by a succession of savvy autocrats, the Bacardi company met with initial success with its formula for rum and, over time, capitalized on a successful identification of its product including its black-bat trademark with Cuban patriotism. Recounting the involvement of Bacardi descendants and their in-laws with Cuban politics, Gjelten paints a picture of their fondness for their country but wariness of its governments. In retrospect, expanding Bacardi operations to Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. proved to be the company's salvation. The book concludes with the Communist confiscation of Bacardi's Cuban assets and the claim on them that the company has not relinquished. Anyone interested in post-Castro Cuba will be better informed by Gjelten's rich history of the Bacardi family. Copyright 2006 Booklist Reviews.
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Aug 1, 2014
The sugar king of Havana - John Paul Rathbone
Summary: In this dual history of a man and a nation, Financial Times journalist John Paul Rathbone uses the stranger-than-fiction story of Julio Lobo, a Cuban sugar magnate who controlled the world sugar market throughout much of the first half of the 20th century, to reveal the luxuries enjoyed by the elite class in pre-revolutionary Cuba.
Booklist Reviews
Like Tom Gjelten in Bacardi and the Fight for Cuba (2008), journalist Rathbone evokes pre-Castro Cuba through one of the country's most successful enterprises, in this case, a sugar empire built by Julio Lobo (1898–1983). Beginning as a trader in his father's firm, Lobo became, by the 1930s, a force in the global sugar market. Rathbone recounts Lobo's speculative coups en route to direct ownership of cane fields and mills. A visitor to Lobo's office, homes, and mills in Cuba, Rathbone contrasts the dilapidation of contemporary Cuba with the look of the prerevolutionary country that he recovers from both Lobo's biography and that of his own Cuban-born mother, whose social life tangentially intersected with Lobo's world. The present/past technique effectively dilutes the polarizing imperatives of pro- and anti-Castro presumptions and restores a realistic sense of what 1950s Cuba was like, including the guarded optimism with which many upper-crust Cubans such as Lobo initially viewed Castro's seizing of power. Rathbone's care with social atmosphere lifts his portrayal of Lobo above the usual life-of-a-tycoon and enriches the historical understanding of readers contemplating post-Castro Cuba. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.
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Aug 1, 2013
Y Los Cubanos Postizos (CD) - Marc Ribot
Summary: Marc Ribot - widely regarded as one of the world's most inventive and adventurous guitarists - makes his Atlantic Records debut with a new collection defined by its edgy and electric tones, punky and loose attitude. Ribot and Co. (including bassist Brad Jones of the Jazz Passengers and Ornette Coleman's Prime Time; percussionist E.J. Rodriguez; organ player John Medeski of Medeski, Martin and Wood; and drummer Robert J. Rodriguez of Miami Sound Machine) have brilliantly condensed legendary Cuban composer, Arsenio Rodriguez's large ensemble arrangements to suit a stripped-down sound of guitar, bass, conga, and occassional keyboard.
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