RaveLos Angeles Review of BooksDeftly and without fanfare, Ferrer upends the 1898 narrative of the United States as Cuba’s savior with an episode from 1781, just prior to the Battle of Yorktown ... There is abundant horror on view in these pages, but all are composed with compassionate eloquence. Ferrer’s history of Cuba is the history of her own life, writ large ... Ferrer’s book, which may be the first general overview of Cuban history written by a woman, spends no time on denunciation—no small feat in a historical context where denunciation has been the order of the day for many decades. Instead, it is primarily concerned with demonstrating just how deeply and intricately enmeshed the histories of Cuba and the United States are. In overflowing, revelatory, and loving detail, Ferrer charts the living, human connections between two nations whose long symbiosis...continually survives each one’s efforts to cut off ties to the other.
