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2024 Jotwell: J. Things We Like 1 (2024)

handle is hein.journals/jotwell2024 and id is 1 raw text is: Legal History The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) https://legalhist.jotwell.com Insights for U.S. Law Professors in the History of Cuba Author : Sara Mayeux Date : January 3, 2024 Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History (2021). On the day in 1853 when Franklin Pierce was inaugurated as president of the United States, his vice president, William Rufus King, took the oath of office remotely-from his sugar plantation in Cuba, where he was dying of tuberculosis. An Alabama cotton planter, King also owned an estate on the island and was resting there in the hopes (which proved futile) that the tropical air might cure him. As Ada Ferrer writes when recounting this anecdote in her awe-inspiring, Pulitzer Prize-winning work, Cuba: An American History: The story of the inauguration of an American vice president in Cuba is unexpected (P. 109). I'll say! As the holder of an advanced degree in U.S. history, I would like to think I know a little bit about the twists and turns of American designs on Cuba, but I must admit I did not know this story. As Ferrer goes on to explain, the spectacle of an Alabama slaveholder taking office as vice president of the United States in the heart of Cuban sugar country is not merely a fun piece of historical trivia but exemplifies just how intertwined the island and its northern neighbor have always been throughout their respective histories, initially through the economic system of slavery and also through the persistent dreams of prominent Americans that the United States might one day annex Cuba as a territory (Pp. 109-10). In the prologue, Ferrer aptly describes her book as a history of Cuba that functions also as a kind of history of the United States (P. 6). The book's organizing theme is the two-way (if uneven) relationship between the two countries (P. 3). Today, decades into the post-revolutionary period, the full complexity of that relationship has been obscured in popular understanding. While many Americans may recognize the influence of U.S. policy on Cuba, Ferrer posits that they are unaware of Cuba's full significance as a reciprocal influence upon U.S. history: The exigencies of the Cold War meant that for decades Americans generally understood Cuba primarily as a small-if dangerously proximate-satellite of the Soviet Union (P. 5). Ferrer's magisterial work includes an excellent overview of the relevant Cold War history, but also makes clear that the 1959 revolution can only be fully understood within the context of the full sweep of Cuban history. The book is panoramic, chronicling Columbus's arrival, empire and slavery, the Spanish- American War, Fidel Castro's rise to power, the fall of the Soviet Union, and Castro's death in 2016. While accessible to a general readership, it also serves as a helpful synthesis of the literature for scholars who are not Cuba specialists. It is also beautifully written. Ferrer, who emigrated from Havana to the United States as an infant, weaves into the narrative pieces of her own family story, but only intermittently and always in an inobtrusive and enlightening manner. Thus, beyond its Cuba-specific insights, this book also offers a model for how to incorporate a personal voice into scholarly writing. Cuba is packed with rewarding insights for many different audiences and types of readers. I myself enjoyed and learned a lot from the book on many different levels. In the remainder of this jot, however, I want to highlight two reasons why I found the book thought-provoking on a professional level, as a law 1/2

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