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Tobacco on the Periphery

A Case Study in Cuban Labour History 1860-1958

Jean Stubbs author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Amaurea Press

Published:30th Jun '23

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Tobacco on the Periphery cover

This is the story of Cuban tobacco, whose agricultural and industrial development was fashioned as deftly as a Havana cigar around overseas trading interests. It traces the nineteenth-century growth of a strong tobacco oligarchy, peasant grower class and urban salaried work force, alongside slave and indentured labour, and examines how a prestigious manufacturing country was transformed into an exporter of leaf. Visibly poor peasant agriculture concealed foreign and home capital which, while creating some large plantations, used and even propagated a most extreme form of sharecropping. Well into the twentieth century, an increasingly embattled industry catered to dwindling luxury markets and an unstable, fluctuating home market with but a few relatively large, on the whole family, concerns and a proliferation of small sweatshop and outwork production.

“A model of careful research and judicious scholarship. The book will serve as a standard reference work on the subject for years to come.” -- Louis A. Pérez, Jr.


“A major investigation that gave tobacco its rightful place in Cuban history, from the pen of one who is today the premier tobacco historian of the Caribbean.” -- Juan José Baldrich


“A well-timed reprint of a masterful and highly readable historical account” -- Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff


“Marshals a profusion of sources for a profound analysis of a period that was fundamental for the history of this commodity in Cuba.” -- Oscar Zanetti Lecuona


“Obligatory reading for understanding the history of tobacco manufacture and the struggles of the Cuban tobacco workers.” -- Joan Casanovas


“Provides an intersectional understanding of the politics of tobacco.” -- Ratna Saptari


“A gem in the historiography of the Cuban tobacco industry.” -- Zoe Nocedo Primo


“This book continues to be a classic.” -- Vicent Sanz Rozalén

ISBN: 9781914278051

Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 25mm

Weight: 800g

382 pages