Winds of Change
Hurricanes and the Transformation of Nineteenth-Century Cuba
Published on 25. November 2002
224 pages
978-0-8078-7565-0 (ISBN)
Description
The first book to establish hurricanes as a key factor in the development of modern Cuba, Winds of Change shows how these great storms played a decisive role in shaping the economy, the culture, and the nation during a critical century in the island’s history.
Always vulnerable to hurricanes, Cuba was ravaged in 1842, 1844, and 1846 by three catastrophic storms, with staggering losses of life and property. Louis Perez combines eyewitness and literary accounts with agricultural data and economic records to show how important facets of the colonial political economy — among them, land tenure forms, labor organization, and production systems — and many of the social relationships at the core of Cuban society were transformed as a result of these and lesser hurricanes. He also examines the impact of repeated natural disasters on the development of Cuban identity and community. Bound together in the face of forces beyond their control, Cubans forged bonds of unity in their ongoing efforts to persevere and recover in the aftermath of destruction.
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05/2001
The University of North Carolina Press
€46.80
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05/2001
The University of North Carolina Press
€91.92
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Person
Louis A. Perez Jr. is J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His books include On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture, winner of the 2000 Bolton-Johnson Prize, and The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography.
Content
- Cover Page
- Winds of Change
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- TABLES
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Where Winds Gather
- 2. Coming into Being
- 3. A Time of Tempests
- 4. When Winds Disturb the Surface
- 5. Bending to the Force of the Wind
- 6. Between the Storms
- Notes
- Bibliographical Essay
- Index
