Showing titles in Caribbean & West Indies

This audiobook tells the story of how Spain managed to conquer the Americas in the span of half a century, from the late 1400s to the mid-1500s. Although exploitation and warfare continued between the colonizers and the colonized after this period, the largest campaigns against the indigenous peoples were undertaken in this short time span, which is the focus of this audiobook.

The Cuban missile crisis was the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War and the most perilous moment in American history. In this dramatic narrative written especially for students and general listeners, Sheldon M. Stern, longtime historian at the John F. Kennedy Library, enables the listener to follow the often harrowing twists and turns of the crisis.

The themes of the history of Cuba are as vast as they are inspiring. Cuba has stared death in the face throughout its rocky history, and most of the time it has gazed into the eyes of death and smiled. Over and over, oppressors have attempted to seize this island and its riches for their own selfish purposes. And over and over, revolutions have risen up to conquer in an attempt to return Cuba to its people. The story of Cuba is a tale of courage and sacrifice, of horrific oppression and inspiring vision.

The Spanish Conquest: What really happened? If you like to use your drive time for education by audiobook, consider this audiobook for widening and deepening your view of an event you studied briefly in school - the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Conquistador Voices, neither glamorizes nor condemns the conquistadors. Somewhat in the manner of a modern film documentary, it treats the so-called conquest as an historical event that’s worth learning about for its own sake, with most of the moralizing left to the listener.

In this compelling, behind-the-scenes account, former top CIA officer and Cuba expert Brian Latell examines the extraordinary Castro brothers and the impending dynastic succession of Fidel's younger brother, Raul. Exploring the brothers' remarkable relationship, he reveals how Fidel and Raul have collaborated, divided responsibilities, and resolved disagreements for more than 46 years, a challenge to the notion that the little-known Raul has been an insignificant player.

If you want to discover the remarkable history of an effort that should never have succeeded, then pay attention.... The first two chapters of this audiobook will provide a brief overview of the history of Cuba, giving depth and understanding to how the revolution came to be. After that, it will plunge into the lives of Batista, Castro, and Guevara, and tell the tale of the revolution.

The Common Wind is a gripping and colorful account of the intercontinental networks that tied together the free and enslaved masses of the New World. Having delved deep into the gray obscurity of official eighteenth-century records in Spanish, English, and French, Julius S. Scott has written a powerful "history from below." Scott follows the spread of "rumors of emancipation" and the people behind them, bringing to life the protagonists in the slave revolution.

When we hear of Jamaica or the Caribbean, we think of beautiful islands of paradise with sun, sea and sand, reggae music, cannabis, and "irie" people like Usain Bolt - people who are living out their best dreams, desires, and lives. But this book analyzes this motif, given the historical and current economic and political situation in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and the "Global South". In an attempt to escape the adverse realities of poverty, inequality, and injustice, the people of the Global South find themselves in north metropolises with very little agency.

Ana Montes had spent seventeen years spying for the Cubans. She had been raised in a patriotic Puerto Rican household: Her father, a psychiatrist, was a former colonel in the US Army. Her sister worked as a translator for the FBI and helped break up a ring of Cuban spies in Miami. Her brother was also a loyal FBI agent. Montes impressed her bosses but in secret spent her breaks memorizing top-secret documents before sending them to the Cuban government. Retired FBI agent Peter J. Lapp explains the clues that led their team to catch one of the United States’ most dangerous spies.

When you hear about one of the biggest scandals in modern home office history, it piques your interest. The Windrush Scandal is an example of the mentality of a bygone era in operation at the top levels of the UK government. Citizens of the British Commonwealth were invited to stay in the UK indefinitely between the end of the 1940s and the start of the 1970s in an attempt to bolster the UK labor market. Many people took up the invitation, upending their lives in an attempt to create a better life in their mother country.

Drawing on archeological and ethno-historical evidence, Irving Rouse sketches a picture of the Tainos-the first people Columbus encountered when he arrived in the Americas-as they existed during the time of Columbus, contrasting their customs with those of their neighbors. He then moves backward in time to the ancestors of the Tainos-two successive groups who settled the West Indies and who are known to archeologists as the Saladoid peoples and the Ostionoid peoples.

In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding father to arrive at a startling conclusion: Hamilton, in all likelihood, was born and raised Jewish. For more than two centuries, his youth in the Caribbean has remained shrouded in mystery. Hamilton himself wanted it that way, and most biographers have simply assumed he had a Christian boyhood. With a detective's persistence and a historian's rigor, Porwancher upends that assumption.

Combining biography, history, and politics, Our Man Down in Havana investigates the real story behind Greene's fictional one. This includes his many visits to a pleasure island that became a revolutionary island, turning his chance involvement into a political commitment. Exploiting a wealth of archival material and interviews with key protagonists, Our Man Down in Havana delves into the story behind and beyond the author's prophetic Cuban tale, focusing on one slice of Greene's manic life: a single novel and its complex history.

What happens when you venture outside the boundaries of a prepackaged travel experience and truly expose yourself to the history, economics, and culture of a country other than your own? We are all familiar with the Cuban cliché: decaying colonial architecture, soulful salsa dancing, refreshing cocktails by the seaside - paradise, in a nutshell. We also share a superficial understanding of Cuba’s troubled political history and economic struggles over the last decades.

The landscape of Anguilla has been graced with the military strides of this noble gentleman Gregory 'Jaggy' Benjamin. With every step and landing of the shoe, there was that stamp of approval of an island branded ‘tranquility wrapped in blue.’ Jaggy was truly a spectacular figure in every way depicting a beacon. You could not miss him, for he stood out, a tall black man. His hallmark action was his favorite twist and lash with his hand against his thigh.

Fabián Escalante, the founder of the Cuban Intelligence Services and head of the Cuban State Security Department, provides a clear-eyed, first-person account of his experiences defending Fidel Castro from the extraordinary attempts to take his life. From lethal poisons to plastic explosives to bazookas, Escalante introduces and describes an array of assassination plots and historical figures and depicts the ensuing cat-and-mouse game in the midst of the Cold War.

In Fantasy Island, Ed Morales traces how, over the years, Puerto Rico has served as a colonial satellite, a Cold War Caribbean showcase, a dumping ground for US manufactured goods, and a corporate tax shelter. He also shows how it has become a blank canvas for mercenary experiments in disaster capitalism on the frontlines of climate change, hamstrung by internal political corruption and the US federal government's prioritization of outside financial interests.

The Haitian Revolution was a slave rebellion that began in 1791 in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now known as Haiti. On this small island, the tyrants were the slave owners, people who not only denied their slaves freedom, but felt justified in killing them. The Haitian Revolution began to change the way slaves were viewed all over the world.

Through oral histories, personal interviews, eyewitness accounts, congressional testimony, and recently declassified FBI files, War Against All Puerto Ricans tells the story of a forgotten revolution and its context in Puerto Rico's history, from the US invasion in 1898 to the modern-day struggle for self-determination.

Explore the captivating history of Havana! This captivating history audiobook is for you if you want to go on a startling adventure, starting from the days of Christopher Columbus and continuing through wars, revolutions, protests, and partying.

Richard Atkinson was in his late 30s and approaching a milestone he had long feared - the age at which his father died – when one day he came across a box of old family letters gathering dust in a cupboard. This discovery set him on an all-consuming, highly emotional journey, ultimately taking him from the weather-beaten house of his Cumbrian ancestors to the ruins of their sugar estates in Jamaica....

The era of piracy in the Caribbean began in the 1500s and died out in the 1830s after the navies of the nations of Western Europe and North America with colonies in the Caribbean began combating pirates. In the early 18th century, a number of the great pirate captains, including Edward "Blackbeard" Teach and "Black Sam" Bellamy, joined forces. This infamous "Pirating Gang" was more than simply a thieving band of brothers.

The first definitive account of this legendary fighting force and its extraordinary leader, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Lee Gardner's Rough Riders is narrative nonfiction at its most invigorating and compulsively listenable. Its dramatic unfolding of a familiar yet not fully known story will remind listeners of James Swanson's Manhunt.

In Colonizing Paradise, historian Jefferson Dillman charts the broad spectrum of sentiments that British citizens and travelers held regarding their colonial possessions in the West Indies. Because British sentiments in the Caribbean located danger and evil not just in indigenous populations but in Spanish Catholics as well, Dillman’s work begins with the arrival of Spanish explorers and conquistadors. Colonizing Paradise spans the arrival of English ships and continues through the early nineteenth century and the colonial era.

Fidel Castro was more than just a politician. His is a story that involves heroic voyages through turbulent oceans, affairs with young women from all over the world, spies, assassins, betrayal, conquest, riots, and battles. He was controversial, inimitable, cruel, courageous, stubborn, disrespectful of human rights, and utterly indomitable. But most of all, he never gave up. And this is his story.

La reseña de la historia de este país caribeño que Usted no puede perderse. Desde sus pasados remotos, su etapa de larga dominación española y su enorme lucha por la independencia, hasta su vida republicana y moderna.

Fidel Castro ruled the country of Cuba for almost 60 years, and he changed the political structure of the country to a one-party socialist state. He ruled firstly as a Prime Minister before converting it to the title of President and Commander-in-Chief of Cuba. Castro’s political journey started on a rebellious note as he participated in the revolt against right-wing administrations in Colombia and the Dominican Republic. He later rose to become the leader of the communist revolution.

In this audiobook, we will explore the man behind the revolution, explore the good and the bad of the man who - despite his lionization - was still a man with all of the foibles and complexities that can plague us all. From his days as a carefree medical student roving the South American countryside to his tenure as the most preeminent revolutionary in the world, the true story of Che Guevara is finally uncovered.

This work by James Williams is one of very few autobiographical texts by Caribbean slaves or former slaves. It became one of the most powerful abolitionist tools for ending the system of apprenticeship which had replaced slavery. Williams argues that apprenticeship worsened the conditions of Jamaican ex-slaves as former owners used the legal system against them.

Este libro describe cómo un grupo de revolucionarios se transformaron en guerrilleros y derrotaron a 50.000 soldados profesionalmente entrenados con el propósito de derrocar al dictador Fulgencio Batista. Cómo una banda de guerrilleros autoentrenados derrocó a un dictador y cambió la historia del mundo.

This book takes listeners on a journey through alternate scenarios, considering how the Cuban Revolution, economy, and global impact might have been different without Che's influence.

In the early 16th century, Spanish adventurers swarmed over the islands of the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America. Portuguese explorers and merchants pushed into the Indian Ocean and beyond to the Spice Islands of the South Pacific. The names of the leaders of these overseas conquests are well known: Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Hernando de Soto, Afonso de Albuquerque, and Ferdinand Magellan. This audiobook explores the details of their incredible lives in service of their monarchs and personal wealth.

Coinciding with the 230 year anniversary of the establishing of the first Baptist church in Jamaica by the Ethiopian Baptist society and their brutal demise almost 150 years ago, Slavery's Heroes documents its pioneers; the men and women who, led by George Liele, advocated for a nation from enslavement to emancipation and beyond. This work offers insight into a people, a faith and a movement which demonstrated boldness, bravery and self-sacrifice.