State of Ambiguity Civic Life and Culture in Cuba's First Republic

• Other Authors: Palmer, Steven (Editor), Piqueras, José Antonio (Editor), Cobos, Amparo Sánchez (Editor)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Durham NC Duke University Press 2014
• Subjects: History of the Americas; History; Anarchism; Cuba; Havana; United States
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

Cuba's first republican era (1902-1959) is principally understood in terms of its failures and discontinuities, its first three decades and the overthrow of Machado seen at best as a prologue to the "real" revolution of 1959. This book brings together scholars from North America, Cuba, and Spain to challenge this narrative, presenting republican Cuba instead as a time of meaningful engagement-socially, politically, and symbolically. Addressing a wide 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-the contributors explore how a broad spectrum of Cubans embraced a political and civic culture of national self-realization. These essays recast the first republic as a time of deep continuity in processes of liberal state- and nation-building that were periodically disrupted-but also reinvigorated-by foreign intervention and profound uncertainty.