The history of Havana /

This beautifully written, reliably informative, and extremely sensitive account provides a delightful examination across time of the extraordinary human dimensions of an extraordinary people. Geography, demography, history, and culture have uniquely shaped the lives of all Cubans, inextricably linking Havana, from its founding, with the rest of the island. The writing is poignantly poetic at times. Of the early city, the authors note: "Havana became a city still rude but at the same time cosmopolitan, a city of wharves and warehouses and all manner of nautical workshops for repairing or manufacturing ships' equipment, instruments, supplies, and maps. It was a city where viceroys in transit rubbed shoulders with itinerant vendors, priests with prostitutes, Andalusian soldiers and sailors with Chinese traders and African slaves." The US occupation after 1898 "changed the city's patriotism and plumbing, its language and its layout, its commerce and its entertainment ... the people of Havana defended their aspirations and their culture and they simultaneously welcomed, synthesized, or forcibly adapted to what was new." The pictures and biographies enhance the history. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. F. W. Knight Johns Hopkins University