Deftly and without fanfare, Ferrer upends the 1898 narrative of the United States as Cuba’s savior with an episode from 1781, just prior to the Battle of Yorktown.

Ferrer turns to the island story, packing five centuries into concise chapters brimming with vivid detail and terrific page-turning momentum.

Ferrer’s retelling of these wars’ events from an updated, more nuanced perspective will bring a fresh view to history you thought you already knew. The narrative is often simplified as 'the United States saved Cuba,' but Ferrer’s look at the Spanish-American War frames it as the point at which relations between the two countries finally began to sour.

It was probably a mistake to adopt such a longue durée...the preceding period is largely irrelevant to Ms. Ferrer’s theme of Cuban-U.S. relations, and her knowledge of it is flimsy.

The idea of putting the United States at the centre of Cuba’s history is not surprising. But Ms Ferrer reveals a relationship that is deeper and more troubled than it may appear to readers who remember the Maine, an American battleship that blew up in Havana harbour in 1898, triggering the Spanish-American war. Her book is timely, too. This summer the biggest protests in decades confronted Cuba’s repressive (and anti-American) regime. Ms Ferrer invites readers to consider the context in which the country’s next change of regime could happen.

The book offered vivid context and detail to stories that for years I heard as vague family musings over steaming cups of café cubano.

Ferrer has produced an English-language history of Cuba remarkable not only for being comprehensive, but also eminently readable.

A fluid, consistently informative history of the long, inextricable link between Cuba and the U.S., well rendered by a veteran Cuban American historian.