Cuba: An American History

(4 Credits)

This seminar explores the question of how Cuba, one Europe’s longest-lived colonies, became so intricately tied to the United States. It asks: how did a place that on several occasions almost became a U.S. state and that for a long time served as a favorite haunt of American mobsters and missionaries, honeymooners, and businessmen reinvent itself as a beacon of third-world socialism, brought the world to the brink of nuclear destruction, outlived the Soviet Union, and now once again beckons American travelers and investors. Starting (briefly) with the arrival of Columbus and the indigenous communities he encountered, and ending with the Cuba policies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, this course will explore in depth the intimate, fraught relationship between the two countries.