Books : Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.106097291
EAN: 9780061147715
ISBN: 0061147710
Label: William Morrow
Manufacturer: William Morrow
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: June 01, 2008
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: June 03, 2008
Sales Rank: 4336
Studio: William Morrow
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In modern-day Havana, the remnants of the glamorous past are everywhere—the old hotel-casinos, vintage American cars, and flickering neon signs speak of a bygone era that is widely familiar and often romanticized, but little understood. In Havana Nocturne, T. J. English offers a riveting, multifaceted true tale of organized crime, political corruption, roaring nightlife, revolution, and international conflict that interweaves the dual stories of the Mob in Havana and the event that would overshadow it, the Cuban Revolution.
As the Cuban people labored under a violently repressive regime throughout the 1950s, Mob leaders Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano turned their eye to Havana. To them, Cuba was the ultimate dream, the greatest hope for the future of the American Mob in the post-Prohibition years of intensified government crackdowns. But when it came time to make their move, it was Lansky, the brilliant Jewish mobster, who reigned supreme. Having cultivated strong ties with the Cuban government and in particular the brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista, Lansky brought key mobsters to Havana to put his ambitious business plans in motion.
Before long, the Mob, with Batista's corrupt government in its pocket, owned the biggest luxury hotels and casinos in Havana, launching an unprecedented tourism boom complete with the most lavish entertainment, the world's biggest celebrities, the most beautiful women, and gambling galore. But their dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and others who would lead the country's disenfranchised to overthrow their corrupt government and its foreign partners—an epic cultural battle that English captures in all its sexy, decadent, ugly glory.
Bringing together long-buried historical information with English's own research in Havana—including interviews with the era's key survivors—Havana Nocturne takes readers back to Cuba in the years when it was a veritable devil's playground for mob leaders. English deftly weaves together the parallel stories of the Havana Mob—featuring notorious criminals such as Santo Trafficante Jr. and Albert Anastasia—and Castro's 26th of July Movement in a riveting, up-close look at how the Mob nearly attained its biggest dream in Havana—and how Fidel Castro trumped it all with the Cuban Revolution.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This is a situation where this book deserves two ratings. One is a 5 for purely the writing, excitement, and entertainment value. it is extremely well written, reading more like a crime novel than a true historical account of the events leading up to the Cuban Revolution. Here lies the problem. As a historical account it has serious limitations. To be brief only a few examples will be given here.
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1) English comes to general conclusions which simply don't fit the complexity of what ... Read More
Rating:  -
I enjoyed this work about how the mob basically ran Cuba during the last few years before Castro. English paints a clear picture about how the corruption fostered upon the Cuban people by the mafia and a few elites in the Cuban government paved the way for 50 plus years of the Castro dictatorship. What is very interesting is the role that the United States played in not only propping up the Batista dictator ship but at the end forcing him out without a viable alternative to go to. Truly this is ... Read More
Rating: -
And, then there was my neighbor Mrs. Brown who sat mesmerized before her television-they had antennas back then- rejoicing that Castro put bad folks against the wall and shot them..until she discovered he was a dogless communist and reversed her opinion. English frames the story left out of your No Child Left Behind histories suggesting maybe the Mafia, that J. Edgar Hoover said did not exist, was not involved in prostitution and drugs in Cuba and that gambling was the real mother lode. This revelation ... Read More
Rating: -
The author went into excruciating and often pointless details about every two-bit mobster in who ever set foot in Cuba, while telling us nearly nothing about the larger picture.
Rating:  -
`Havana Nocturne' by T.J. English
In his latest installment, `Havana Nocturne', T.J. English, author of `The Westies' brings us the true story of the Havana Mob. This is the tale of the underworlds influence on Cuba, Havana specifically, in the pre-revolutionary days. You're introduced to all the main players: Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro, et al. The level of corruption at all levels, be it social or political, is examined thoroughly and connections ... Read More
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