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Event

Cuba: An American History

Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba: An American History is an ambitious and moving chronicle of the country's history and its relationship with the United States. Drawing on more than thirty years of research—as well as her own extensive travel to the island over the same period—Ferrer examines and reveals the evolution of modern Cuba, documenting not only the influence of the United States on the island but also the many ways Cuba has been a recurring presence in US affairs. Filled with rousing stories and characters, this is a book that will give American readers unexpected insights into the history of their own country and, in so doing, offer a way to imagine a new relationship with Cuba.

Date & Time

Monday
Jan. 31, 2022
4:00pm – 5:30pm ET

Location

Zoom Webinar

Overview

Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba: An American History is an ambitious and moving chronicle of the country's history and its relationship with the United States. Drawing on more than thirty years of research—as well as her own extensive travel to the island over the same period—Ferrer examines and reveals the evolution of modern Cuba, documenting not only the influence of the United States on the island but also the many ways Cuba has been a recurring presence in US affairs. Filled with rousing stories and characters, this is a book that will give American readers unexpected insights into the history of their own country and, in so doing, offer a way to imagine a new relationship with Cuba.

Ada Ferrer is Julius Silver Professor of History and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, where she has taught since 1995. She is the author of Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868–1898, winner of the Berkshire Book Prize for the best first book by a woman in any field of history, and Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution, which won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize from the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University as well as multiple prizes from the American Historical Association. Born in Cuba and raised in the United States, she has been traveling to and conducting research on the island since 1990.

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University and the National History Center) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is organized jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks its anonymous individual donors and institutional partners (the George Washington University History Department and the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest) for their continued support.

Speaker

Ada Ferrer

Ada Ferrer

New York University

Panelists

Lillian Guerra

Lillian Guerra

University of Florida
Rebecca J. Scott

Rebecca J. Scott

University of Michigan

Hosted By

History and Public Policy Program

The History and Public Policy Program makes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs.  Read more

Latin America Program

The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action.  Read more

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