The Cuban Evolution

An epic history deserves dramatic chronicling, and Cuba is a country with such a history. Given its outsize impact on the world, the island nation is often understood as a small place with a large foreign policy. With Cuba: An American History, the scholar Ada Ferrer tells the latest five centuries of its sweeping story in a beautiful book. The clever title signals her framework: no nation is ever truly an island, and this one has always been intimately connected to its neighbour to the north — and vice versa.

If, like the many Canadians who would typically descend upon Cuba at this time of year, one harbours an image of the country’s past that begins and ends with the 1959 revolution, it might be tempting to flip to the last third of Ferrer’s book, where her storytelling powers are on full display. And, truly, what is more dramatic than the Cuban Revolution? But skipping...