Havana Before Castro: When Cuba was a Tropical Playground
Selected Book Details
- Perfect Paperback
- Edition: First
- Author: Peter Moruzzi
- Publisher: Gibbs Smith
- Release Date: August 2008
- ISBN-10: 1423603672
- ISBN-13: 9781423603672
- List Price: $30.00
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryFeaturing hundreds of vintage photographs, postcards, brochures, and other materials evocative of time and place, Havana Before Castro: When Cuba Was a Tropical Playground documents how the city of Havana evolved from Prohibition haven and rich man's playground to a heady blend of glittering nightclubs, outrageous cabarets, all-night bars, and backstreet brothels. Here, captured in one amazing book, is the drama, passion, intrigue, and opulence of a legendary city during its heyday-before the Castro dictatorship re-imagined the country and Americans were banned from travel to this tropical paradise. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Any library strong in Cuban history and culture must have this
Rating:
Color and vintage black and white photos abound in HAVANA BEFORE CASTRO: WHEN CUBA WAS A TROPICAL PLAYGROUND. It re-creates an era when the city was a popular destination for Americans between World War I and Castro's revolution, packing over 500 color and black and white images into a 'then and now' recreation contrasting past and present. Any library strong in Cuban history and culture must have this.
wonderful book
Rating:
This is a wonderful book that describes Havana in the same way that my parents have always told me they remember. I lived in Cuba until the age of thirteen and in many parts of Havana i could see remains of what once was a grandiose city. This city is now converted into a total ruin. With regards to the writer "formoso" , he believes all the comunist propaganda written by the so called revolution. I imagine he believes that today's cuba is a paradise where everybody lives better.......how come all cubans want to leave that paradise?.........
Doesn't Tell the Full Story
Rating: 
"Havana Before Castro" is the typical un-balanced poorly written account of Cuba before Castro. Without doubt, this book is a hit with the Miami Cuban Mafia.
The real Cuba before Castro, was an island built by the rich and corrupt for the enjoyment of the rich and corrupt. Drugs, alcohol, and even child prostitution/trafficking prospered while the average citizen (the you's and me's of society) lived in poverty under a system that kept them as ignorant cogs in the wheel of greed.
Cubans have a misplaced tendency to think that Cuba before Castro was a wonderland; a land of plenty! It was, a land of plenty poverty and plenty crime. A land where education, health care, clothing, and even your next meal was out of reach. A land where people lived as peasants in shacks; not because of an embargo but because of government sponsored poverty. Need we all remember that the Cuban Revolution was supported by the people because the people were fed up by those who came before Castro.
This book should be retitled to "Cuba Before Morals". It is a wonderful collection of pictures and nothing more.
Great illustrations; Surprisingly good read
Rating:
With a profusion of exquisite illustrations, "Havana Before Castro" is also a suprisingly well-balanced, perceptively written historical work. While one good picture is certainly worth a thousand words,this book goes beyond the typical illustrated book genre to recapture also in text a Havana which vividly lives in the memory of those of us lucky enough to have experienced it first hand and, now, in the memory of those who read this book.
Havana Before Castro
Rating:
Very informative with wonderful before and after photos, I am Cuban and remember some of the places in the photos. Would highly recommend it to my friends.
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