Cuba and the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos. LOUIS A. PÉREZ Jr.: Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008

Abstract

In Cuba and the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos, Louis A. Pérez Jr. adds to his impressive oeuvre of work on US-Cuba relations in the twentieth century. With his practiced command over the archival material, Pérez examines the power of metaphor in defining the United States' imperial relationship with Cuba. Through a range of textual and visual sources, Pérez maps out the changing metaphors US actors used to depict "Cuba" from the early nineteenth century through the years following the Cuban revolution. Pérez asserts, "metaphors have consequences" (14), and he aptly argues how US representations of Cuba resulted in policies based on fictions and "figment[s] of their [US actors] own imagination" (23).  Thus, this is not a book about Cuba, but rather it is a book about how North American ideas of Cuba enabled the United States to gain its "sense of self-righteous hubris," and "destiny" as it became an imperial power in the twentieth century (10).