Pérez Firmat, Gustavo, 1949-
New Haven : Yale University Press, c2010.
Added to CLICnet on 04/29/2014

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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 215-225) and index.
• Introduction: so near and yet so foreign — America’s smartest city — A little rumba numba — Music for the eyes — Mad for mambo — Cuba in Apt. 3-B — Dirges in bolero time — Comic comandantes, exotic exiles — A taste of Cuba — Epilogue: Adams’s apple.
• Cuba, an island 750 miles long, with a population of about 11 million, lies less than 100 miles off the U.S. coast. Yet the island’s influences on America’s cultural imagination are extensive and deeply ingrained. In this book the author probes the importance of Havana, and of greater Cuba, in the cultural history of the United States. Through books, advertisements, travel guides, films, and music, he demonstrates the influence of the island on almost two centuries of American life. From John Quincy Adams’s comparison of Cuba to an apple ready to drop into America’s lap, to the latest episodes in the lives of the comic comandantes and exotic exiles, and to such notable Cuban exports as the rumba and the mambo, cigars and mojitos, the Cuba that emerges from these pages is a locale that Cubans and Americans have jointly imagined and inhabited. The book deftly illustrates what makes Cuba, as the author writes, so near and yet so foreign.
• AUGSBURG COLLEGE’s copy (paperback) is 20 cm.

Subjects:

• United States — Civilization — Cuban influences.
• Cuba — In popular culture.
• Popular culture — United States.
• Popular culture — Cuba.
• National characteristics, Cuban.
• Cuba — Social life and customs.
• Havana (Cuba) — Social life and customs.
• Americans — Travel — Cuba — History.

Requested by Lansing, M