A new and innovative series offering in-depth cultural, historical and literary
guides to the great cities of the world. More than ordinary guidebooks, they
introduce the visitor or armchair traveller to each city's unique present-day
identity and its links with the past.From its humble birth as a few thatched
huts along the shoreline, Havana has emerged from five hundred years of
turbulent history as the most fascinating city in the Caribbean. Spain's "Pearl
of the Antilles" was in turn plundered by pirates, invaded by foreign fleets and
then turned into a Mafia-run playground under U.S. tutelage. Since 1959 the seat
of Fidel Castro's revolutionary regime, Havana is