“Cuba is often a mirage, especially for North Americans, who feel they must know something about the place because of its proximity and the outsized influence the island has had on the United States. And yet it often still feels just out of reach. What The Cuba Reader does is provide incisive, intimate insight, not so much a road map as a vision of what has been and what could be. It's indispensable.” - Achy Obejas
“What a beautiful journey through five hundred years of Cuban history, culture, and politics! The Cuba Reader is a sumptuous medley of poetry, song, speeches, interviews, and vignettes from novels new and old. You'll hear the voices of santeros and sugar workers, prostitutes and politicos, revolutionaries and reporters, dissidents and dancers. It's the next best thing to being in Cuba, so sit back with a mojito and enjoy the masterfully guided tour.” - Medea Benjamin, activist and cofounder of Global Exchange
"The Cuba Reader offers a splendid overview of the Cuban experience, past and present, through a dazzling array of points of view. . . . The very fullness of its vision makes The Cuba Reader an indispensable book for courses—of every academic discipline—on Cuba.” - Louis A. Pérez Jr., author of On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture
"The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics by Aviva Chomsky was really insightful for me. It has all these essays from people who lived in Cuba at different times, including a priest who came with the Spanish, so you get a different perspective on the attacks on native people and their resistance." - Ytasha Womack, Boston Globe
"[An] ambitious and impressive anthology, a sweeping collection of source materials by and about Cubans both on the island and living in other countries. The editors . . . have wisely chosen songs, paintings, photographs, short stories, essays, speeches, government reports, cartoons and newspaper articles that span Cuban history. . . . What The Cuba Reader does extraordinarily well is to reveal the nuances and complexity of the Cuban experience. All shades of politics are here, and they infuse Cuban dance, music, film and religion." - Susan Fernandez, The Miami Herald
"[A] crash course in Cuban history. If you’re looking for a single (hefty) volume to get you up to speed about the past 500 years of Cuban politics and culture, this is it." - Julie Schwietert Collazo, The Guardian
"[A] classic. The editors of this book and their many accomplices deserve nothing but praise for producing the best introduction to Cuba one can possibly find." - Gavin O'Toole, Latin American Review of Books
"[T]he editors should be congratulated for their Herculean effort. The reader will be most useful for undergraduate courses where it will provide students with an impressive overview of the Cuban experience over the last five centuries. In fact, anyone interested in obtaining a comprehensive and multifaceted firsthand account of Cuban history will benefit from this book." - John J. Dwyer, The Americas
"The Cuba Reader is . . . an impressive and worthy addition to the series of similar readers on Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, published by Duke University Press. . . . An engaging assortment of readings. . . . A rich variety of voices, most of them Cuban, which, when read together reveal a nation and people of complexity and charm, pathos and poignancy, quite unlike the stark categories in which the warring ideologies usually place them. . . . This is a volume that can be read with benefit and enjoyment by student and faculty scholars alike." - Richard R. Super, International Third World Studies Journal and Review
"This Reader provides a wonderfully eclectic selection of writings from and about Cuba. . . . [A] very useful resource for the teaching of courses relating to Cuba, providing a taster of many aspects of the island's history that should encourage those who dip into it to come away with a more nuanced understanding of an island that has been plagued by caricature." - Jonathan Curry-Machado, Journal of Latin American Studies
"For a solid introduction to all things Cuban, start with this edited collection of primary sources, including speeches, articles, songs, poems, book excerpts, and other publications spanning 500 years of Cuban history and culture." - Boyd Childress, Library Journal
"This is a balanced, far-ranging, equitable, and insightful book, and the suggestions for further reading list and comprehensive index add to its usability. Altogether an essential addition to any Latin American studies collection. . . . Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty." - L. K. Miller, Choice
“One of the great strengths of this collection is the manner in which, through perceptive selection of writings..., we readers are offered the opportunity to process for ourselves how it can be that an achievement as promising as the overthrow of a repressive dictatorship ... could turn out so badly.” - Judith Adler Hellman, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies
"The Cuba Reader is an indispensable book for scholars interested in Cuban, Caribbean, and Latin American history.... The editors’ judicious selection of classic primary sources, complemented by lesser-known contemporary accounts ... make this an ideal volume for classroom use or for the lay reader with an interest in Cuba’s past and present.” - Matt D. Childs, History: Review of Books
“Part of Duke’s excellent series of Latin America readers, [The Cuba Reader] weaves together the writings, experiences, and analyses of individuals from an array of backgrounds and perspectives, giving voice to a diverse multitude of Cubans (and non-Cuban observers) across more than five hundred years of history.” - Rubrick Biegon, Latin American Politics and Society
