Showing titles in Caribbean & West Indies

From revolutionary to Cold War adversary, Fidel Castro was one of the world's most controversial leaders and perhaps its most enduring. As Cuba's president for nearly 50 years, Castro's influential leadership captivated allies and enemies alike. By virtue of passionate oration and committed sense of purpose - good or bad - Castro kept the Cuban people devoted and the world enthralled.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Cuba: An American History comes a heartbreaking yet redemptive memoir about migration, separation, and the love of one family forcing its way through the fissures of history. In 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power, Ada Ferrer’s mother...

For millennia, people have utilized plants as foods, medicines, hallucinogens, clothing, shelter, perfumes, dyes, and even poisons. In the Caribbean, medicinal and practical use of plants began with its first inhabitants, the Amerindians. New plants and knowledge were introduced through both...

Dive into the amazing story of Jamaica, a country shaped by the trials of slavery and the incredible strength of its people. This audiobook tells how enslaved Africans, despite enduring terrible hardships, built the foundation of Jamaica’s vibrant culture and heritage.

If you want to discover the captivating history of the Spanish-American War, then pay attention...Two captivating manuscripts in one audiobook: The Spanish-American War and The Philippine-American War. The Spanish-American War really only lasted about 10 weeks (the buildup and decision to go to war took longer than the war itself), but a peace treaty was not signed until December of 1898. This was an event that was the tipping point for the end of the Spanish Empire and the rise of the US as a formidable player on the world stage.

The triumph of the Rebel Army in Cuba’s mid-20th-century war against Batista marked the beginning of a profound revolutionary process that reshaped the island’s destiny. Emerging outside the corrupt political systems that ruled before March 10, 1952, the revolutionaries sought to abolish the deep-rooted injustices inherited from Spanish colonialism and the neocolonial domination of the United States. Their victory on January 1, 1959, opened a new chapter in Cuban history—one filled with achievements, challenges, and the pursuit of genuine political and economic independence.

Vodou, Vodoun, Vudu, and Voodoo has captivated the imaginations of Americans for centuries. Everyone is familiar with New Orleans Voodoo and its images of black candles, chicken’s feet, and skulls meant to invoke fear and awe in outsiders. Voodoo as practiced in the United States has become an amalgam of witchcraft, necromancy, rootwork, conjure, and a catch-all word for any type of magic that seems dark and ominous. In the Caribbean, however, Voodoo is spelled Vodou and is practiced as an African Traditional Religion (ATR).

Este libro describe cómo un grupo de revolucionarios se transformaron en guerrilleros y derrotaron a 50.000 soldados profesionalmente entrenados con el propósito de derrocar al dictador Fulgencio Batista. Cómo una banda de guerrilleros autoentrenados derrocó a un dictador y cambió la...

On April 1st, 1980, a bus with hopeful asylees crashed into the Peruvian embassy in Havana, Cuba. Within 48 hours, over 10,800 people occupied every inch of the 28,000-square-foot embassy. Among them was a fourteen-year-old girl clinging to her younger brother. Relying on the wisdom of her father, Hildy also clung to hope.

In Christian Slavery, Katharine Gerbner contends that religion was fundamental to the development of both slavery and race in the Protestant Atlantic world.

Fifty years after the Cuban revolution, the legendary wealth of the sugar magnate Julio Lobo remains emblematic of a certain way of life that came to an abrupt end when Fidel Castro marched into Havana. Known in his day as the King of Sugar, Lobo was for decades the most powerful force in the world sugar market, controlling vast swaths of the island's sugar interests.

In the town of San Pedro in the Dominican Republic, baseball is not just a way of life. It's the way of life. By the year 2008, 79 boys and men from San Pedro had gone on to play in the Major Leagues - that means one in six Dominican Republicans who have played in the Majors have come from one tiny, impoverished region. Manny Alexander, Sammy Sosa, Tony Fernandez, and legions of other San Pedro players who came up in the sugar mill teams flocked to the United States.

Howard Jones provides a concise, incisive, and dramatic account of the disastrous attempt to overthrow Castro in April 1961. Drawing on recently declassified CIA documents, Jones deftly examines the train of missteps and self-deceptions that led to the invasion of U.S.-trained exiles at the Bay of Pigs. Ignoring warnings from the ambassador to Cuba, the Eisenhower administration put in motion an operation that proved nearly unstoppable, even after the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.

Joseph Laroche was an anomaly among the passengers of the Titanic. He was exceptionally well-educated in a time when few Black men had access to an education - and when even fewer were able to travel on a luxurious ship in first or second class. When his family arrived in the United States without him after the Titanic's tragic crash, they were received well along with the other survivors and even sponsored by a wealthy New York heiress. Who was Joseph Laroche? Where was he going, and what was his story? This biography recounts the life of Joseph Laroche.

"Empowering Puerto Rico" by Sage Ellison is a crucial guide for anyone seeking to contribute to Puerto Rico's journey toward self-determination and community resilience. The book addresses the pressing challenges faced by those looking to support Puerto Rico's independence movement while providing practical strategies to engage effectively. Ellison outlines a roadmap to understanding Puerto Rico's complex history and current political landscape, enabling listeners to identify avenues for empowerment through community initiatives.

En una nación que alguna vez fue sinónimo de violencia, corrupción y desesperanza, un joven presidente con dominio tecnológico prometió un cambio radical—y cumplió. Bukele: Creando el Nuevo El Salvador ofrece una exploración incisiva del ascenso meteórico de Nayib Bukele y su presidencia transformadora y polémica. Donald Elton examina meticulosamente cómo Bukele rompió décadas de estancamiento y miedo al reducir dramáticamente las tasas de criminalidad mediante una guerra sin precedentes contra las pandillas, modernizando la infraestructura y desafiando la corrupción ...

He challenged the greatest empire on earth with a ragtag bunch of renegades—and brought it to its knees. Empire of Blue Water is the real story of the pirates of the Caribbean. Henry Morgan, a twenty-year-old Welshman, crossed the Atlantic in 1655, hell-bent on making his fortune. Over the...

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent1700s with slave revolts in the British colony of Jamaica as well as the American Revolution, The Master’s Daughter is the story of the young mulatto Felice Henderson whose Scottish father Duncan Henderson acknowledges her parentage and takes full responsibility for her upbringing. The naïve Felice is thrown into a world with which she is unfamiliar and must deal with her changing relationships with the slaves on the estate. When she meets a kindred spirit in Mulatto John, she faces the rude awakening of her status as a creole and a colonial. ...

The Real Death in Paradise is cosy crime...in the sun, recounting the idyllic two years ex-DCI Richard Preston spent as one of the twelve young police officers sent to the tropical paradise and infamous tax-haven of the Cayman Islands. But when faced with the reality of life in the Caribbean - including foiling a turtle egg kidnap, a rum smuggling ring and corrupt police officers - Richard soon found out that the truth was far more interesting than he ever could have imagined.

The Common Wind is a gripping and colorful account of the intercontinental networks that tied together the free and enslaved masses of the New World. Having delved deep into the gray obscurity of official eighteenth-century records in Spanish, English, and French, Julius S. Scott has written a powerful "history from below." Scott follows the spread of "rumors of emancipation" and the people behind them, bringing to life the protagonists in the slave revolution.