Description
Book SynopsisAddressing a range of topics - civic clubs and folkloric societies, science, public health and agrarian policies, popular culture, national memory, and the intersection of race and labor, this title features contributors who explore how a broad spectrum of Cubans embraced a political and civic culture of national self-realization.
Trade Review“Taken as a whole, this provocative collection reveals that the Cuban republic was a vibrant locus of intellectual ferment ranging from the natural sciences and architecture to medicine and the media. It is proof that the history of the Cuban republic requires much more from historians than simplistic accounts of “doctors and generals.”” -- John A. Gutiérrez * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *
"Professors and graduate students concerned with the background to the Cuban Revolution of 1959 will find much to ponder in the new approaches and material these noted authors offer in
State of Ambiguity. By assembling this collection of outstanding essays-all of which are reader-friendly, free of scholarly jargon, and well-referenced-the editors have amply succeeded in their effort to challenge the three dominant views of pre-Castro Cuba by reframing the central concerns of civic and cultural life during the first republic and by opening up new avenues of investigation." -- Jane M. Rausch * Journal of Third World Studies *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Revisiting Cuba's First Republic / Steven Palmer, Jose Antonio Piqueras, and Amparo Sanchez Cobos 1 1. A Sunken Ship, a Bronze Eagle, and the Politics of Memory: The "Social Life" of the USS Maine in Cuba (1898-1961) / Marial Iglesias Utset 22 2. Shifting Sands of Cuban Science, 1875-1933 / Steven Palmer 54 3. Race, Labor, and Citizenship in Cuba: A View from the Sugar District of Cienfuegos, 1886-1909 / Rebecca J. Scott 4. Slaughterhouses and Milk Consumption in the "Sick Republic": Socio-Environmental Change and Sanitary Technology in Havana, 1890-1925 / Reinaldo Funes Monzote 121 5. Attributes for the Capital of an Austere Republic / Jose Antonio Piqueras 148 6. Transcending Borders: !Tierra! and the Expansion of Anarchism in Cuba after Independence / Amparo Sanchez Cobos 181 7. Steeds, Cocks, and Guayaberas: The Social Impact of Agrarian Reorganization in the Republic / Imilcy Balboa Navarro 208 8. Disctrict 25: Rotary Clubs and Regional Civic Power in Cuba, 1916-1940 / Maikel Farinas Borrego 231 9. El naciente publico oyente: Towards a Genealogy of the Audience in Early Republican Cuba / Alejandra Bronfman 251 10. New Knowledge for New Times: The Sociedad del Folklore Cubano during the "Critical Decade" (1923-1930) / Ricardo Quiza Moreno 269 11. Nation, State, and the Making of Cuban Working Class, 1920-1940 / Robert Whitney 292 Bibliography 323 Contributors 349 Index 353
