Our SDG offers a stimulating opportunity to examine Cuba"s dramatic 500 year history and the country's deep and troubling relationship with the United States. It will explore themes of conquest, colonization, slavery, independence and revolutions leading to many thought-provoking and lively discussions. Based on 30 years of research, the core book is the 2022 Pulitzer prize winning — Cuba: An American History, by noted historian Ada Ferrer. A sweeping chronicle of the island nation and it's people., Ferrer analyzes pivotal moments such as the U.S. intervention in Cuba's War for Independence, the 1959 Cuban Revolution led by Fidel and Raul Castro and the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ferrer's narrative contains previously hidden insights that resonate today and need to be considered.
Seeing Cuba's history through the eyes of the Cuban people, it is possible to understand the Cuban connection differently. Ferrer writes of the possibility for Cuba and the United States "to move beyond the enmity of the last 60 years and the long impositions before that to a better future relationship.“ We hope you will join us. There will be lots to discuss!!
1- Prologue.There and Here. Part I.:Dispatches. Chapter 1.Heaven and Hell, Chapter 2. Key to the Indies, Chapter 3. Copper Virgin.
2- Part II: A Colony Worth a Kingdom. Chapter 4.Havana for Florida, Chapter 5. Most Favored Nation, Chapter 6. Sugar's Revoolution.
3- Part III. An Empire for Slavery. Chapter 7.Adam's Apple, Chapter 8.Torture Plots, Chapter 9. Dreams of Dominion. Chapter 10. Civil War Journeys
4- Part IV. Cuba Libre! Chapter 11. Slave, Soldier,Citizen, Chapter 12. A Revolution for the World, Part V. American Interregnum. Chapter13. A War Renamed, Chapter 14. Island Occupied
5- Part VI. Strange Republic. Chapter 15.Empire of Sugar,Chapter 16, City of Dreams. Chapter.17. Fratricide, Chapter 18. Boom,Crash,Awake.
6- Part VII Republic,Take Two. Chapters19. Authentic Masses, Chapter 20. New Charter, Chapter 21.Suitcases,
7-Part VIII. Origin Stories. Chapter 22. Centennial Stories, Chapter 23. Insurrectionary Line, Chapter 24. The Mountains Rise,
8.-Part IX . The Revolution Begins Now! Chapter 25.The First Time, Chapter 26.Radical Non Stop, Part X. Chapter 27.Battle, Chapter 28. Brink
9- Part XI. Hearts and Minds.Chapter 29. New People, Chapter 30. New Americans, Chapter 31. Other Cubas?
10- Part XII Departures. Chapter 32 Special Years, Chapter 33. Open and Shut, Epilogue.If Monuments Could Speak. Conclusions
Ada Ferrer. Cuba: An American History, (2021)