Fulgencio Batista, and for that matter most of Cuban history prior to the Revolution of , is lost in the historical mists. There was a Cuba prior to Fidel Castro and the Marxist Revolution, and this study seeks to rediscover it. Batista dominated Cuban politics from the period between  and  in the same way Fidel Castro dominates Cuba today, and has done for more than the past four decades. This work attempts to accurately represent Batista. These are my scholarly aims, but my

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... ions are more than historical. A large part of the motivation to write this book comes from a desire to know my family and the Cuba they lived in prior to the revolution. My father emigrated to the United States in , during the period that Batista ruled Cuba, when one of his close friends in the railroad labor movement died under mysterious circumstances. The island was awash in revolution and revolutionaries, and he chose to emigrate to avoid becoming the next mysterious victim. In the aftermath of the revolution's triumph, many of my relatives, some Castro supporters and others opponents, fled into exile. Some family members remained loyal to the revolution and decided to stay. Family conversations often centered on the Cuba prior to the revolution, so in many ways this book is one of self-discovery. In the process of uncovering the historical Batista, I have sought to uncover something about the world of my father and his brothers and sisters. It is a journey that I hope will interest readers. I chose Batista as my subject because his failures and achievements played out on a grand scale in the Cuba of the s, s, and s, and even        ix