Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba
By Tom Gjelten
(Viking Adult, Hardcover, 9780670019786, 480pp.)
Publication Date: September 2008
Other Editions of This Title: eBook, Paperback (August 2009)
Categories: Caribbean & West Indies - Cuba, Corporate & Business History - General
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Selected by Indie Booksellers for the October 2008 Indie NotablesA unique history of Cuba, captured in the life and times of the famous rum dynasty
The Bacardis of Cuba, builders of a rum distillery and a worldwide brand, came of age with their nation and helped define what it meant to be Cuban. Across five generations, the Bacardi family has held fast to its Cuban identity, even in exile from the country for whose freedom they once fought. Now National Public Radio correspondent Tom Gjelten tells the dramatic story of one family, its business, and its nation, a 150-year tale with the sweep and power of an epic.
The Bacardi clan--patriots and bon vivants, entrepreneurs and intellectuals--provided an example of business and civic leadership in its homeland for nearly a century. From the fight for Cuban independence from Spain in the 1860s to the rise of Fidel Castro and beyond, there is no chapter in Cuban history in which the Bacardis have not played a role. In chronicling the saga of this remarkable family and the company that bears its name, Tom Gjelten describes the intersection of business and power, family and politics, community and exile.
Tom Gjelten is a veteran correspondent for NPR on international issues, and a regular panelist on the PBS program Washington Week. His reporting from Sarajevo won him a George Polk Award for excellence in radio reporting. He is the author of Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege.
??a fair, balanced, and yet extremely evocative portrait of the rum dynasty and its love-hate affairs with the Spanish Crown, Fidel Castro and the United States government?.Mr. Gjelten masterfully illuminates the biography of a cause personified by a proud family that pioneered a major business and shaped the recent past of Cuba? ?
?New York Times
??a gripping saga that tells us just as much about human nature and the struggle between power and freedom as it does about Bacardi's transformation from a fledgling business into the world's top family- owned distiller.?
?The Wall Street Journal
?Absorbing familial and political history?colorful family saga and a carefully researched corrective to caricatures of decadent pre-revolutionary Cuba and the 50-year disaster of Fidel Castro's rule?.The Bacardi liquor story is every bit as engaging as Cuba's tumultuous political history, and both narrative strands are inexorably intertwined.?
?The Washington Post
?thorough reporting and an eye for rich, often quirky detail??
?Chicago Tribune
??an appealingly smooth and colorful history?thorough and open-minded... of a company that rose in step with Cuban nationalism.?
?San Francisco Chronicle
?an engaging portrait of a family squabble and a corrupt country.?
?Miami Herald
??Gjelten's narrative is detailed and compelling, delivering a vivid portrait of the family business and the family itself??
?Newsday
?A refreshing history .? solid, journalistic treatment of commercial and political history? ?
?Kirkus
?Gjelten has concocted an interesting combination of corporate and political history.?
?Library Journal
?Gjelten?s account of a liberal, progressive Cuban business clan complicates and enriches the conventional picture of a society torn between right and left dictatorships.?
? Publishers Weekly
?Anyone interested in post-Castro Cuba will be better informed by Gjelten?s rich history of the Bacardi family.?
?Booklist
?Tom Gjelten traces the history of the Bacardi family, their business, and their involvement in Cuban history with consummate skill. This is a first-rate distillation, at once illuminating and entrancing; a sweeping narrative that rivals the best of historical novels. This book will definitely enhance the buzz in every Daiquiri and Mojito, and give added meaning to every Cuba Libre served anywhere in the world?
?Carlos Eire, author of Waiting for Snow in Havana, winner of the National Book Award
"With a novelist's sense of drama and a historian's understanding of the social forces that shape our lives, Tom Gjelten has captured vividly -- through the chronicle of a powerful family's fortunes -- one of the great political dramas of our time."
--Ronald Steel, author of Walter Lippmann and the American Century
?Contained within family genealogy are often found profound insights into the history of an entire people. The Bacardís represent one such family. Gjelten has fashioned a splendid prism through which to cast new light on the human dimensions of the Cuban past. The epochal transitions of Cuban national formation are experienced through successive generations of Bacardís, revealing the complex ways that a people are overtaken by the forces of their own creation. Anyone with an interest in Cuban history?and a fondness for Cuban rum?will find the Bacardí family history irresistible.?
--Louis A. Perez, Jr., J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
?Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba explores and illuminates the story of our nearest and largest Caribbean island neighbor in an utterly unique and fundamentally revealing way. Tom Gjelten has written a book that is a ?must read? for scholars, policy makers, and indeed anyone interested in the long, hard journey of Cuba -- and for what will happen there next. A brilliant job!"
--Admiral Jim Stavridis, U.S. Navy, Commander, U.S. Southern Command
"A marvelous blend of biography and vivid history. This book will surely become essential reading to understanding both Cuba?s tragic past and the island?s post-Castro future. A stunning achievement from a versatile journalist."
--Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
"It?s hard to imagine that any [Cuban history] is as enjoyable. [Gjelten?s] book is as smooth and refreshing as a well-made daiquiri."
-- Barry Gewen, The New York Times
"A pistol-packing salsa dance of modern history ? On one level, this book is the story of a great merchant family and its deeply intertwined relationship with a mysterious Cuban island nation. But it is also a story of the still resonating conflicts between capitalism and communism, nationalism and imperialism, and freedom and tyranny.?
-- Harry Hurt III, New York Times Business Section
"Exhaustively researched, succeeds in painting a vivid portrait of the company's early, scrappy years and its prominent role in the fight against Spanish rule. Gjelten provides a fascinating look at how the company built itself into the multinational giant it has become."
-- Randy Kennedy, New York Times Sunday Book Review
"With its fabulous triumphs and poignant defeats, this stirring tale of rum, money, and revolutions has all the markings of a great epic movie."
-- Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs
"A gem .. Gjelten has managed to capture in a single book almost all that one needs to know of Cuban history.? -- Mirta Ojito, Columbia Journalism Review
BR> "With thorough reporting and an eye for rich, often quirky detail, Tom Gjelten traces the story of the Bacardi family, whose product helped shape Cuba's soul until Fidel Castro nationalized its company's facilities in 1960." -- Will Weissert, Associated Press
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