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Book Cover
E-book
Author Pérez Firmat, Gustavo, 1949-

Title The Havana habit / Gustavo Pérez Firmat
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, ©2010

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Description 1 online resource (x, 245 pages) : illustrations, maps
Contents 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
Summary 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."
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-225) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Popular culture -- United States.
Popular culture -- Cuba
National characteristics, Cuban.
Americans -- Travel -- Cuba -- History
Cubans.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy -- Cultural Policy.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Popular Culture.
HISTORY -- United States -- 20th Century.
Cubans
Americans -- Travel
Civilization -- Cuban influences
Manners and customs
National characteristics, Cuban
Popular culture
SUBJECT United States -- Civilization -- Cuban influences. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2010007530
Cuba -- In popular culture
Cuba -- Social life and customs. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85034609
Havana (Cuba) -- Social life and customs
Subject Cuba
Cuba -- Havana
United States
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780300168761
0300168764