Fat cigars, big cars, dirty money, vibrant music, intellectual
ferment, international tourism Havana, since its creation in 1535,
has long offered a unique, bewildering mix of the backward and the
hip, the seedy and the sophisticated. In many respects, it has
seemed to share many of the characteristics of other colonial or
post-colonial cities of the Caribbean and Latin America. But at the
same time, Havana created its own niche both as an international
city and a dynamic national capital on the one hand, one that both
embraced and stood in opposition to its great neighbour of the
North, and, on the other hand, one that simultaneously led the
Cuban national search for identity and acted as a port of entry for
external influences. Yet, despite Cubas fluctuating fortunes,
Havana has always managed to thrive and develop its own unique
character as an urban, social, economic, cultural and political
site. Havana offers a sweeping account of the city and its cultural
development, focusing especially on the last two centuries and on
the role played by the city's cultural communities in the search
for national identity. century, taking us through the periods when
it was a sugar boomtown, pulled between empires, a decadent
metropolis, a site of both cultural revolution and relative
stagnation during the development of the Revolution to its revival
in the 1990s. He looks at the often creative tensions between
external influences (especially Spain, France and the United
States) and indigenous cultural pressures. Areas covered include
architecture, literature, music, dance, cinema and the press.
Cosmopolitan playground and nationalist vanguard, Havana has
developed its own original style while at the same time both
reflecting and directing the complicated politics of the whole of
Cuba. This book offers a concise introduction to one of the most
intriguing cities of the twenty-first century.
General
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