Cuba then, Cuba now

From the moment Columbus gazed out from his Santa Maria and hailed 'the most beautiful land human eyes have seen', Cuba has been a magnet for fantasies - and for historic drama.

In recent years, Fidel Castro's longtime communist feif has been roiled by new momentous shifts - Castro's death; dtente with the United States; the ascent of a new leader in Havana. 'Cuba Then, Cuba Now' offers selected chapters from 'Island People', Joshua Jelly-Schapiro's magnum opus on the history and cultures of the Caribbean; they come with a new introduction and conclusion, drawn from his reporting from Cuba for The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, to bring the story up to date.