Hugh Thomas

Encyclopaedic in range and breathtaking in execution, Cuba is surely one of the seminal works of world history.

“Brilliant” The New York Times

“Immensely readable. Thomas's notion of history's scope is generous, for he has not limited himself to telling old political and military events; he describes Cuban culture at all stages ... not merely accessible but absorbing. His language is witty but never mocking, crisp but never harsh.” New Yorker

“Thomas seems to have talked to everybody not dead or in jail, and read everything. He is scrupulously fair.” Time

First published in 1971, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom is still one of the most important and authoritative books on this country.  At the climax of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the population of the Northern Hemisphere risked extinction. Two hundred years earlier, Cuba - whose position in the Caribbean was the military key to the New World - was similarly the storm centre of the Seven Years War between England, France and Spain. Hugh Thomas's book explores the whole sweep of Cuban history from the English capture of Havana in 1762 through the years of Spanish and United States domination down to the twentieth century and the extraordinary revolution of Fidel Castro. 'So much that seems obscure in the present Cuban scene', Hugh Thomas writes, 'becomes more comprehensible if set against the experiences of the previous four or five generations.' Accordingly, throughout this two hundred year period the author relates the political, economic and social events of Cuba; in particular he sets Cuba's greatest crop, sugar in the context of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade and the development of Cuba's relations with the United States and the other states of Latin America. Cuba marries Hugh Thomas's unique skills as an historian with an intricate and absorbing subject.