Download Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen
When visiting take the experience or thoughts kinds others, book Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen can be a good source. It's true. You could read this Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen as the source that can be downloaded and install below. The method to download and install is additionally simple. You could see the web link web page that our company offer and afterwards purchase guide making an offer. Download Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen and you can deposit in your very own gadget.
Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen
Download Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen
Why should await some days to obtain or receive guide Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen that you buy? Why should you take it if you can get Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen the faster one? You could find the same book that you order here. This is it guide Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen that you could get directly after buying. This Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen is well known book around the world, of course many individuals will aim to possess it. Why do not you come to be the initial? Still puzzled with the way?
The method to obtain this publication Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen is quite easy. You may not go for some locations as well as invest the moment to just locate guide Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen In fact, you may not constantly obtain guide as you agree. But here, only by search and discover Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen, you could get the listings of the books that you actually anticipate. Occasionally, there are numerous publications that are showed. Those books of course will certainly surprise you as this Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen collection.
Are you interested in primarily books Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen If you are still confused on which of guide Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen that must be bought, it is your time to not this site to seek. Today, you will need this Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen as one of the most referred book and also a lot of required publication as sources, in other time, you can appreciate for other books. It will certainly depend upon your eager demands. But, we consistently recommend that books Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen can be a great problem for your life.
Even we talk about the books Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen; you may not locate the published publications here. So many compilations are given in soft documents. It will exactly give you a lot more perks. Why? The first is that you might not have to carry guide all over by satisfying the bag with this Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen It is for the book remains in soft documents, so you could wait in gizmo. After that, you could open up the gizmo anywhere and also check out guide properly. Those are some few perks that can be got. So, take all advantages of getting this soft documents book Guantánamo: An American History, By Jonathan M. Hansen in this site by downloading in web link offered.
An on-the-ground history of American empire
Say the word "Guantánamo" and orange jumpsuits, chain-link fences, torture, and indefinite detention come to mind. To critics the world over, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is a striking symbol of American hypocrisy. But the prison isn't the whole story. For more than two centuries, Guantánamo has been at the center of American imperial ambition, first as an object of desire then as a convenient staging ground.
In Guantánamo: An American History, Jonathan M. Hansen presents the first complete account of this fascinating place. The U.S. presence at Guantánamo predates even the nation itself, as the bay figured centrally in the imperial expansion plans of colonist and British sailor Lawrence Washington―half brother of the future president George. As the young United States rose in power, Thomas Jefferson and his followers envisioned a vast "empire of liberty," which hinged on U.S. control of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Politically and geographically, Guantánamo Bay was the key to this strategy. So when Cubans took up arms against their Spanish rulers in 1898, America swooped in to ensure that Guantánamo would end up firmly in its control.
Over the next century, the American navy turned the bay into an idyllic modern Mayberry―complete with bungalows, cul-de-sacs, and country clubs―which base residents still enjoy. In many ways, Guantánamo remains more quintessentially American than America itself: a distillation of the idealism and arrogance that has characterized U.S. national identity and foreign policy from the very beginning.
Despite the Obama administration's repeated efforts to shutter the notorious prison, the naval base is in no danger of closing anytime soon. Places like Guantánamo, which fall between the clear borders of law and sovereignty, continue to serve a purpose regardless of which leaders―left, right, or center―hold the reins of power.
- Sales Rank: #1028839 in Books
- Published on: 2011-10-11
- Released on: 2011-10-11
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.38" h x 1.58" w x 6.32" l, 1.75 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 448 pages
Review
“Jonathan M. Hansen has dug beneath all the self-serving American myths about the history of Guantánamo Bay to expose a fascinating--and enduring--colonial enterprise. It makes a great story, which Hansen carries through to its latest twist--the use of Guantánamo as a prison for suspected terrorists, some of whom were subjected to torture. Hansen shines a bright new light on Bush administration lawlessness.” ―Anthony Lewis, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“In this brilliant blend of social and political history, Jonathan M. Hansen puts a small but critically important corner of the American empire under the microscope. What he reveals may not be pretty, but it's powerfully instructive and endlessly fascinating.” ―Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War
“Most accounts of the United States in Cuba paint heroes and villains in black and white according to the author's political perspective. With exquisite craftsmanship, Jonathan M. Hansen paints in all the subtle shades of gray required to illuminate the tangled history of this highly charged symbol of American power. This fascinating book is the one to read if you want to understand what lies beneath the current controversies surrounding Guantánamo.” ―James T. Kloppenberg, Chair of the History Department and Charles Warren Professor of American History, Harvard University
“With wit and verve, Jonathan M. Hansen illuminates the long, strange, compelling, and troubling story of Guantánamo. A vivid and thoughtful writer, Hansen employs Guantánamo as a prism to reveal the tangled construction of an overseas American empire.” ―Alan Taylor, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“As former commander in chief of the U.S. Southern Command, I thought I knew everything there was to know about Guantánamo. And then I read Jonathan M. Hansen's book. This is essential reading for all who are curious about how America got into its current predicament--and about America's global aspirations reaching back before the United States was even a country.” ―General Barry R. McCaffrey, USA (Ret)
“As we confront the future of Guantanamo, we need to know the long and complex pre- 9/11 history of this unique place. Jonathan M. Hansen's important and deeply researched book delivers that fascinating and often disturbing history.” ―Thomas Bender, author of A Nation among Nations
“Like a rough tear in the fabric of our national identity, the United States' presence at Guantánamo Bay betrays the paradox that has shaped our history: the U.S. has been, since its inception, both a bastion of independence and an imperial nation. In this enthralling and meticulously researched narrative, the historian Jonathan M. Hansen lays bare the uncomfortable truths that precipitated our occupation of a small and fiercely independent neighbor. Guantánamo has been a stronghold of American influence over an independent Cuba, a holding pen for Haitian refugees living with HIV, and, more recently, the site of human rights atrocities at its notorious prison camp. Here, Hansen offers a clear-eyed and fearless examination of the place that remains a global theatre for the consequences of America's pursuit of power.” ―Paul Farmer, United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti
“This well-researched and well-written book will appeal to all readers.” ―Library Journal
“In this well-written and lively account of a place most Americans find thoroughly mysterious, Jonathan M. Hansen, a historian at Harvard University, offers a carefully crafted history of one of America's most paradoxical possessions, viewed in connection to United States national interest.” ―Charles R. Gallagher, America: The Catholic Weekly
“Hansen's book is the best, and certainly the most comprehensive, I've read on Guantanamo.” ―Dr. Wayne S. Smith, Senior Fellow and director of the Cuba program at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C.
About the Author
Jonathan M. Hansen, a historian at Harvard University, is the author of The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890–1920.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Guantanamo
1REDISCOVERING GUANTNAMOOn the afternoon of April 29, 1494, Guantnamo Bay bustled with activity. Hunters from a village up the Guantnamo Valley gathered food for a celebratory feast.1 Using traps, nets, hooks, and harpoons, and perhaps working from canoes, the hunters were having a good time of it. Within a few hours, they had hauled in roughly one hundred pounds of fish, which they set about preserving for the journey home. Meanwhile, a second group of hunters pursued alligators that made their homes along the banks of the rivers that fed Guantnamo Bay. They, too, were enjoying a good day, and before long the bay was perfumed by wood smoke from fires sizzling with fresh fish and alligator meat hung from wooden spits.2An ordinary day at Guantnamo became memorable sometime in the midafternoon, when three large vessels topped by billowing white sails appeared off the entrance to the bay. News of the foreign fleet's return to the Americas had preceded it to Cuba, borne by fleeing villagers from nearby Hispaniola.3 With scarcely time to conceal themselves, the hunters withdrew into the hills and bushes bordering the bay, leaving their game roasting over the fires. Aware of the strangers' advantage in weaponry, the hunters could only watch as the strangers disembarked and devoured the fish, all the while eschewing the alligator, the more precious delicacy in local circles.4With their stomachs full, the strangers set out to explore the surroundings,as if to identify if not thank the people who had so amply provided for them. Still, the hunters shrank back, until finally appointing an envoy to find out what the strangers wanted. Moving forward, the envoy was met not by one of the newcomers but by a fellow Arawak speaker whom the strangers had snatched off one of the Bahama islands.5 Convinced at last that the strangers had stopped at the bay for only a quick visit, the hunters abandoned their hiding places and approached their guests with caution and generosity. Never mind the hundred pounds of fish, the interpreter was assured; the hunters could recover that in a matter of hours. There followed an exchange of gifts and pleasantries, after which the strangers reboarded their vessels and went to bed, the better to rise early, set sail, and finally put to rest the impious notion that Cuba was an island and not the continent of Asia.6
The people who discovered Columbus helping himself to their dinner that day had preceded him by nearly a millennium. The Tano, as Columbus's unwitting hosts are known today, were themselves recent arrivals in eastern Cuba.7 They had been beaten to the bay by still earlier discoverers, who began to harvest Guantnamo's resources as early as 1000 BCE.8 Guantnamo's first discoverers hailed from the west, hopping over islands, now submerged, that once connected Central America to Cuba via Jamaica some seven thousand years ago.9 These so-called Casimiroid people found in Guantnamo a cornucopia of flora and fauna with no one to compete for it. The Casimiroids exploited Guantnamo Bay more as a hunting ground than as a home. For them, the bay comprised part of a larger ecosystem that met the requirements of Stone Age living. From the mudflats and mangrove-lined terraces of the outer harbor, the Casimiroids took shellfish, fish, and game, and materials for the simple tools that facilitated their hunting and scavenging. Along the streambeds and river valleys that fed the inner harbor, they drew water and collected wild fruit and vegetation. Theirs was a difficult, prosaic life. Their impact on the Guantnamo Basin was negligible. The vast bay easily absorbed their sparse population, and for their first two thousand years in Cuba, they had few if any rivals.10As the Casimiroids were wending their way toward Guantnamo, another people--horticultural, sedentary, ceramic--began to stir deep in the Orinoco River basin of South America. These were the ancestors of Columbus's Tano hosts. What set them in motion is anybody's guess, but sometime after 2000 BCE they took to the sea, riding a branch of the South Equatorial Current along the northeast coast of South America, over the equator, to the base of the Antilles archipelago. Over the next two thousand years, they migrated up the archipelago from island to island, all the while appropriating cultural elements of the Stone Age peoples they displaced. By the late first century BCE, they had arrived at Hispaniola, where Tano civilization reached its zenith several centuries before Columbus. The Tano first crossed the Windward Passage from Hispaniola to eastern Cuba around 700 CE. There their westward progress stalled, their assimilative powers outmatched by the guns, germs, and steel of the conquistadors.In the American imagination, Columbus's so-called discovery of America in 1492 represents a watershed second only to the birth of Christ. In the eyes of Columbus and his royal sponsors, the mission to the Orient was merely a logical extension of the reconquista, the centuries-old (and vastly expensive) effort to drive the Moors (and Jews) from Spain. Only in hindsight can the expulsion of the Moors in 1492 be taken for granted. At the time Columbus was charting his journey west, the success of that battle could hardly be assumed, and Spain's newly consolidated kingdom of Aragon and Castile wanted nothing so much as funds sufficient to finish the job. Promise of access to lucrative Oriental markets induced Castile's queen Isabella to sponsor an audacious navigator from Genoa.11On the Iberian Peninsula, the rise of Aragon and Castile was achieved by the creation of what were in effect colonies established in the wake of the retreating Moors. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella granted rights to their most trusted and valued lieutenants to rule over these new colonies in their names. But there were only so many such grants to be won at home, and after 1492 the Orbe Novo beckoned to a cohort of second-tier conquistadors flush from the heat of battle, no less ambitious for fame and fortune, and no less committed to the project of making the world safe for Christianity than the royal favorites themselves. Columbus was more sailor than warrior, but warriorsaccompanied him on his several voyages to the Americas, where violence became the Spaniards' stock-in-trade.12Columbus's brief sojourn at Guantnamo signaled the beginning of a cataclysmic social and economic revolution that permanently transformed not only Cuba and Hispaniola but North and South America, Europe, and Africa besides. The islands and continents that Columbus and his successors "discovered" at the end of the fifteenth century were worthless without a labor force. Spain was merely the first in a series of aspiring European and North American empires that defended the enslavement and annihilation of millions of indigenous inhabitants and imported Africans on the basis of putative cultural and racial differences. The contradiction between the universalism latent in Western theology and philosophy and the West's historic treatment of Indians, slaves, and countless "others" inspired a long argument about just who was fit to be counted as a "human being," an argument that continues to this day (women? indigenous Americans? African slaves? stateless enemy combatants?). But all of this was unimaginable upon that first encounter at Guantnamo Bay.13
No doubt Columbus's impatience at Guantnamo Bay suited the Tano hunters just fine. With the admiral on his way to China, they were free to complete the task that had brought them to the bay. Compared with their cousins on Hispaniola, they had gotten off easily that day. At Isabella, Columbus's headquarters across the Windward Passage, the psychological and physical demands of conquest had begun to take a toll on the Europeans, with one of the first formal incidents of Spanish-on-Tano violence recorded earlier that same month.14 A local Indian had allegedly stolen a Spaniard's clothes; as punishment, one of Columbus's lieutenants cut off the ear of a Tano vassal, taking into custody the responsible cacique and several members of his family. Columbus wanted to teach the Indians a lesson by cutting off all his prisoners' arms, but a Tano ally dissuaded him. Nevertheless, a precedent had been set, and over the course of the next twenty years, the Spanish so brutalized Hispaniola that within a single generation there remained scarcely any Tano left.Cuba, meanwhile, enjoyed what can only be called a grace period,its inhabitants going about their lives as if they could avoid their neighbors'fate simply by ignoring it.15 When Spain finally turned its attention to Cuba in 1511, it did so with brutal efficiency. To pacify Cuba, the Crown selected Diego Velzquez de Cullar, author of spectacular atrocities in the Spanish conquest of Hispaniola, including the burning alive of eighty-four Tano caciques assembled at the village of Xara-gua in autumn 1503.16 Velzquez arrived in Cuba with a vengeance, indeed, in hot pursuit of a cacique named Hatuey, who had fled across the Windward Passage rather than submit to Spanish authority--a capital offense.17By 1511 the Crown had introduced in Hispaniola a scheme of land and labor distribution called encomienda, a feudal system for the New World. By the terms of encomienda, Spanish colonists received land along with right to the labor of the Indians who dwelt upon it. Technically, the Indians owned the lots on which they lived, and if less than independent, they were not formally slaves. Until they ran away, that is, thus depriving the Spanish encomendero the means of making a living (and the Crown itself its reason for being in the New World). A Tano in flight from encomienda was for all intents and purposes a runaway slave, and no amount of hand-wringing by Bartolom de las Casas and a whole order of Dominican monks could alter his or her fate.18Hatuey landed in Cuba at Punta de Mais, just across the Windward Passage from today'...
Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Lessons from History?
By George I. Ferris
Great piece of research. I appreciated the geology and anthropology pages. Best treatment of the Platt debate both in U.S. and Cuba. Thorough and clearly stated. If U.S. Latin American policy following the Spanish-American War reads 'imperialist' with a tinge of 'divine right', so be it. It was. It isn't pretty by today's standards. And hypocricy seems never to go out of fashion. Panama, Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, Guatemala and others have experienced similar treatment. We must continue to read histories like this until we learn a little humility. If the truth hurts, find out why. Scholarship such as this certainly enlightens us all and might even influence Washington. One would hope.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
A history that will surprise and capture you
By David J. Giber
Sometimes a single place or incident becomes a lens for viewing a huge expanse of time and events. In this book, Jonathan Hansen has made Guantanamo a larger than life location from which the history of the Americas and particularly the United States can be viewed. The connections of so many famous figures to this place and the seemingly never ending American fascination with Guantanamo and Cuba comes completely alive and engages you with its twists and turns. I agree with the reviewer who wrote that it was hard to put down the book as one follows Guantanamo from incidents like the early military engagement there involving George Washington's half brother to the Cuban Revolution and on to the present disgrace of the US prison there. The writing style sets a quick and easy pace while the historical details are absolutely fascinating. This book is so relevant as we debate what should be the extent of our current foreign involvements today; Hansen artfully allows the reader to think through their own perspective on these issues while trying to learn from the past. This is not just a history of Guantanamo but a wonderful piece of writing that brings a new perspective on the American experience. It will surprise and capture you.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Remembering Gitmo
By Judith Hallenbeck
In 1956 as a young girl of 16 moving to Guantanamo Bay, due to my father being assigned to the Naval Hospital, it was just another move as a Navy Junior. Now some 56 years later and after reading Mr. Hansen's book, Guantanamo, An American History, I realize what a privilege it was to live in a place with so much exciting history and so much more history to come.
I can attest to the 1956-1958 period and the Coral Reef yearbook. Imagine my surprise to see my name and those of my classmates in the book. We were typical teenagers living in an unusual place free to do whatever we wanted.
Instead of writing what could have been an extremely dry book Mr. Hansen has written a very readable one starting with US relations with Spain and ending with the ongoing imprisonment of 9/11 detainees.
Many mistakes have been made by the United States in Guantanamo and relations that ensued with Cuba,Haiti, Russia, etc. but I don't think the book represents a bashing of the United States. It is a statement of fact. We have in the past and continue now to impose our will and what we think is best on other countries. Is this practice wrong-only time will tell.
Judy
Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen PDF
Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen EPub
Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen Doc
Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen iBooks
Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen rtf
Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen Mobipocket
Guantánamo: An American History, by Jonathan M. Hansen Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar