The Havana habit / Gustavo Pérez Firmat.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pérez Firmat, Gustavo, 1949-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Americans--Travel.

History.

Americans.

Popular culture.

United States--Civilization--Cuban influences.

United States.

Civilization.

Cuba--In popular culture.

Cuba.

Popular culture--United States.

Popular culture--Cuba.

National characteristics, Cuban.

Cuba--Social life and customs.

Manners and customs.

Havana (Cuba)--Social life and customs.

Havana (Cuba).

Americans--Travel--Cuba--History.

Physical Description:

x, 245 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2010]

Summary:

Cuba, an island 750 miles long, with a population of about 11 million, lies less than 100 miles off the U.S. coast. Yet the island's influences on America's cultural imagination are extensive and deeply ingrained. In this book the author probes the importance of Havana, and of greater Cuba, in the cultural history of the United States. Through books, advertisements, travel guides, films, and music, he demonstrates the influence of the island on almost two centuries of American life. From John Quincy Adams's comparison of Cuba to an apple ready to drop into America's lap, to the latest episodes in the lives of the "comic comandantes and exotic exiles," and to such notable Cuban exports as the rumba and the mambo, cigars and mojitos, the Cuba that emerges from these pages is a locale that Cubans and Americans have jointly imagined and inhabited. The book deftly illustrates what makes Cuba, as the author writes, "so near and yet so foreign."

Contents:

Introduction: so near and yet so foreign

America's smartest city

A little rumba numba

Music for the eyes

Mad for mambo

Cuba in Apt. 3-B

Dirges in bolero time

Comic comandantes, exotic exiles

A taste of Cuba

Epilogue: Adams's apple.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780300141320

0300141327

OCLC:

601346826