Cuba

Situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba became a coveted and prosperous possession of Spain after its discovery by Columbus in 1492. In 1898 it became the last of the Spanish colonies in the Americas to gain independence. Cuba approaches the mid-1990s in severe crisis, with economic problems caused by the collapse of Eastern European bloc communism and a tightened US blockade on its 35-year-old revolutionary regime. The compilers provide the English-speaker with a key work of reference on all aspects of Cuba's past and present.