Why read Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century?

Book cover of Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century

Book description

Havana in the 1550s was a small coastal village with a very limited population that was vulnerable to attack. By 1610, however, under Spanish rule it had become one of the best-fortified port cities in the world and an Atlantic center of shipping, commerce, and shipbuilding. Using all available local…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Juan José Ponce Vázquez

Author

Just like the United States has been fixated in Cuba since its creation as a nation, American historians have obsessed with the history of Cuba for decades, but most have focused on the 20th century, or gone back as far as the 18th century. Alejandro de la Fuente and his collaborators take the reader back to the first century of the Spanish colonization of the island and describes the transformation of Havana from a sleepy port town in the northwest of the island into one of the most important ports in the Spanish empire and the Atlantic world.…

From Juan's list on The best books on the Spanish Caribbean in the early colonial period.