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Havana Before Castro | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter Moruzzi
Publisher: Gibbs Smith, Publisher
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $17.80
You Save: $12.20 (41%)
New (3) Used (4) from $17.78
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 58808
Media: Perfect Paperback
Edition: First
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 11 x 8.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 1423603672
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.91063
EAN: 9781423603672
ASIN: 1423603672
Publication Date: August 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Featuring hundreds of vintage photographs, postcards, brochures, and other materials evocative of time and place, Havana Before Castro: When Cuba Was a Tropical Playground documents how the city of Havana evolved from Prohibition haven and rich man's playground to a heady blend of glittering nightclubs, outrageous cabarets, all-night bars, and backstreet brothels. Here, captured in one amazing book, is the drama, passion, intrigue, and opulence of a legendary city during its heyday-before the Castro dictatorship re-imagined the country and Americans were banned from travel to this tropical paradise.
An architectural historian by profession, Peter Moruzzi is an acknowledged expert on mid-century Modern architecture and design. He is the founder of the Palm Springs Modern Committee, an internationally recognized historic preservation organization, and the writer/director of Desert Holiday, a documentary film chronicling the history of Palm Springs as seen through vintage postcards. He resides in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles and in Palm Springs.
(20081009)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Doesn't Tell the Full Story December 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Havana Before Castro" is the typical un-balanced poorly written account of Cuba before Castro. Without doubt, this book is a hit with the Miami Cuban Mafia.
The real Cuba before Castro, was an island built by the rich and corrupt for the enjoyment of the rich and corrupt. Drugs, alcohol, and even child prostitution/trafficking prospered while the average citizen (the you's and me's of society) lived in poverty under a system that kept them as ignorant cogs in the wheel of greed.
Cubans have a misplaced tendency to think that Cuba before Castro was a wonderland; a land of plenty! It was, a land of plenty poverty and plenty crime. A land where education, health care, clothing, and even your next meal was out of reach. A land where people lived as peasants in shacks; not because of an embargo but because of government sponsored poverty. Need we all remember that the Cuban Revolution was supported by the people because the people were fed up by those who came before Castro.
This book should be retitled to "Cuba Before Morals". It is a wonderful collection of pictures and nothing more.
 Great illustrations; Surprisingly good read November 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
With a profusion of exquisite illustrations, "Havana Before Castro" is also a suprisingly well-balanced, perceptively written historical work. While one good picture is certainly worth a thousand words,this book goes beyond the typical illustrated book genre to recapture also in text a Havana which vividly lives in the memory of those of us lucky enough to have experienced it first hand and, now, in the memory of those who read this book.
 Havana Before Castro October 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Very informative with wonderful before and after photos, I am Cuban and remember some of the places in the photos. Would highly recommend it to my friends.
great gift September 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
great, easy read yet interesting history of Havana. Wonderful photos and fun highlights of the who's who of that era. The author did a good job of combining the two to make for a brilliant fun read
A Trip Back in Time September 2, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
All Cubans dream of returning to Cuba someday, but sadly the Cuba of the 1950s, when Havana was truly the Paris of the Caribbean has been lost. Gone are the days when Cuba was truly an international destination with first class hotels and hundreds of bars, restaurants, and night clubs -- from sketchy little neighborhood joints to fabulous casinos. Here you could hear Olga Guillot at the Tropicana and see spectacular stage shows under the stars. As today, the streets were filled with the latest American cars; only at that time, many were fresh from Detroit assembly lines. Buildings in even the poorest sections of the city were well kept and crisply painted.
Someday, Havana may regain some of its lost luster. Until then, a new book "Havana Before Castro" takes you back in time to relive this great city at its prime. Author Peter Morruzi has put together a great collection of vintage photos in both color and black and white. The book documents life in Cuba from the beginnings of the Cuban republic to the glory days when locals and tourists packed Sloppy Joe's Bar and La Floridita -- "the cradle of the daiquiri."
In "Havana Before Castro," you'll get a taste of a dynamic city where popular nightspots abounded along the Prado, central Havana's promenade, and along Calle 23 in Havana's Vedado district. A chapter on the Havana Riviera provides stunning images on this resort casino where Cuban sculptors created beautiful pieces of art. The Riviera's lobby is itself a work of art with a breathtaking circular staircase and architectural details that present the best of 50's modern.
We especially liked the chapter on "Life as an Habanero." You can almost smell the aromas of fresh Cuban bread, strong cafe cubano, and fritas frying on a street corner grill, all carried along the streets of Havana by swift, sea-scented breezes.
"Havana Before Castro" is well researched and well written, providing an engaging read that goes beyond the beautiful photos. For those who remember these glory days, the book is truly a trip back in time. For those who never experienced Cuba before Castro, the book is a revelation: Havana was truly a beautiful, world-class city!
Hope and pray that it can happen again...
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