Book Review

In the making for ten years, Louis A. Pérez Jr.'s book will stand as a definitive analysis of the complex process that shaped identity and nationality in Cuba as a result of its "encounter with the United States." In seven long chapters with an appendix and marvelous pictures, Pérez successfully explains how Cuban and American "cultures converged on each other, interacting and merging, and fused in dynamic adaptation and accommodation" from late colonial times until the 1959 revolution. A traditional Spanish-African culture, characterized by rigid hierarchical norms developed during four centuries of colonial rule, gradually absorbed the modernizing influences driving United States culture at a time of vigorous capitalistic expansion.	1
Contact with North American market forces deepened under the partial hegemony of the Platt Amendment and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1903. A relationship of economic dependence sustained by expanding cultural forms rooted in market values was subsequently consolidated. As the values, norms, and material representations of United States market culture penetrated a society struggling with a diffuse concept of identity, "the North American presence derived much of its moral authority from its capacity to implicate vast numbers of Cubans in its purpose." The agents of North Americanization included sugar corporations, missionaries, and philanthropists, as well as diverse commercial and financial institutions. In short, "modernity arrived in many forms."	2
Close contact with North American market forces resulted in millions of Cubans from all classes, races, and backgrounds incorporating United States ideas of taste, preferences, and consumption into their daily lives. The notion that "consumption induces self-esteem" transformed the economic behavior of the middle and upper classes more than it did that of urban marginals, Afro-Cubans, or rural dwellers, but the development of commercial mass media facilitated their integration as well. A distinct moral and political vision derived from liberal Protestantism came with the diffusion of market culture. Liberal values "emphasizing free will, ideals of civil liberties and civic virtues, natural rights and individual responsibility" were propagated. Discipline and hard work were virtuous; indolence and apathy were to be frowned upon.	3
The meshing of North American values with Cuban traditions was reflected in sugar mills, popular games, and family life. Conditions in the bateyes (communities surrounding the mills) reflected order and propriety, values central to the North American mission. Influences spread from the enclaves as the mill became "the single most dominant factor in the life of neighboring towns and cities." Generally speaking, North Americans were owners and held the top managerial positions, while Cubans worked in technical, administrative, and clerical roles. Labor was drawn from a growing rural proletariat.	4
Egalitarianism and competition—other values in the cosmology of modernity—shaped the encounter on the baseball field. Readers will find much information about the contributions of the Cuban players Sandy Amorós, Minnie Miñoso, Luis Tiant, and dozens of others to the North American pastime. American players such as Wilmer "Vinegar" Mizell, Max Lanier, Rocky Nelson, and scores of others, black and white, enjoyed tremendous popularity among Cubans. By the 1950s, "a baseball culture had taken hold on the island," and Cuban children stayed glued to the few televisions sets then available watching the World Series. In social and racial terms, "U.S. racial barriers were first broken in Cuba," where el béisbol "contributed to transforming major league play in the United States" and dampened racial prejudices in both countries. From the standpoint of individual and national identity, there is no doubt that baseball was (and remains) a dominant cultural factor across classes, races, and education levels because love of the game is inextricably tied to that which makes a Cuban a Cuban.	. . .