Bringing Sugar Workers to Center Stage in Cuba History. A Review of Gillian McGillivray's <em>Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959</em> (Durham, NC and London: Duke UP, 2009)

Authors

  • Manuel Barcia University of Leeds

Keywords:

labor, Cuban revolution, sugar communities, class, state formation

Abstract

Labor relations in pre-revolutionary Cuba have attracted the attention of scholars over the past years, probably as never before. These new works have attempted to fill out a gap and to rectify previously misguided assumptions about labor, class and racial relations in both Cuban cities and countryside. Robert J. Alexander’s A History of Organized Labor in Cuba and Araceli Tinajero’s El Lector: A History of the Cigar Factory Reader constitute two recent examples of this scholarly trend. The title reviewed here, Gillian McGillivray’s Blazing Cane, is a new important addition to this emerging body of literature.

Author Biography

Manuel Barcia, University of Leeds

Manuel Barcia es profesor de Estudios Latinoamericanos y Director Asociado del Instituto de Estudios Coloniales y Postcoloniales en la Universidad de Leeds. Sus temas de investigación incluyen la historia del tráfico esclavista y la esclavitud en el mundo atlántico durante la era de las revoluciones. Ha publicado numerosos artículos en revistas académicas así como el libro Seeds of Insurrection: Domination and Resistance on Western Cuban Plantations (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), el cual explora las formas de resistencia practicadas por los esclavos africanos en Cuba durante la primera mitad del siglo diecinueve.

Published

2011-01-01

How to Cite

Barcia, M. (2011). Bringing Sugar Workers to Center Stage in Cuba History. A Review of Gillian McGillivray’s <em>Blazing Cane: Sugar Communities, Class, and State Formation in Cuba, 1868-1959</em> (Durham, NC and London: Duke UP, 2009). A Contracorriente: Una Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos, 8(2), 436–438. Retrieved from https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/478

Issue

Section

Reviews: Cuban History