Mein Kampf or Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba

Mein Kampf

Author: Adolf Hitler

Translated by Ralph Manheim with a new introduction by John Lukacs. A compilation of Hitler's most famous prison writings of 1923--the bible of National Socialism and the blueprint for the Third Reich.

Konrad Heiden

"For years, Mein Kampf stood as proof of the blindness and complacency of the world. In its pages Hitler announced--long before he came to power--a program of blood and terror in a self-revelation of such overwhelming frankness that few had the courage to believe it...That such a man could go so far toward realizing his ambitions--that is a phenomenon the world will ponder for centuries to come." --Konrad Heiden, author of Der Fuhrer: Hitler's Rise to Power

James Gerard

Vitally interesting. . . . It is with sadness, tinged with fear for the world's future, that we read Hitler's hymn of hate against that race which has added so many names to the roll of the great in science, in medicine, in surgery, in music and the arts, in literature and all uplifting human endeavor. -- Books of the Century; New York Times review, October 1933

Table of Contents:

	Translator's Note
	Introduction
Volume 1	A Reckoning
I	In the House of My Parents	3
II	Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna	19
III	General Political Considerations Based on My Vienna Period	66
IV	Munich	126
V	The World War	157
VI	War Propaganda	176
VII	The Revolution	187
VIII	The Beginning of My Political Activity	207
IX	The 'German Workers' Party'	217
X	Causes of the Collapse	225
XI	Nation and Race	284
XII	The First Period of Development of the National Socialist German Workers' Party	330
Volume 2	The National Socialist Movement
I	Philosophy and Party	373
II	The State	386
III	Subjects and Citizens	438
IV	Personality and the Conception of the Folkish State	442
V	Philosophy and Organization	452
VI	The Struggle of the Early Period - the Significance of the Spoken Word	463
VII	The Struggle with the Red Front	480
VIII	The Strong Man Is Mightiest Alone	508
IX	Basic Ideas Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the SA	518
X	Federalism as a Mask	554
XI	Propaganda and Organization	579
XII	The Trade-Union Question	596
XIII	German Alliance Policy after the War	607
XIV	Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy	641
XV	The Right of Emergency Defense	668
	Conclusion	688
	Index	689

Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause

Author: Tom Gjelten

A unique history of Cuba, captured in the life and times of the famous rum dynasty

The Bacardis of Cuba, builders of a rum distillery and a worldwide brand, came of age with their nation and helped define what it meant to be Cuban. Across five generations, the Bacardi family has held fast to its Cuban identity, even in exile from the country for whose freedom they once fought. Now National Public Radio correspondent Tom Gjelten tells the dramatic story of one family, its business, and its nation, a 150-year tale with the sweep and power of an epic.

The Bacardi clan--patriots and bon vivants, entrepreneurs and intellectuals--provided an example of business and civic leadership in its homeland for nearly a century. From the fight for Cuban independence from Spain in the 1860s to the rise of Fidel Castro and beyond, there is no chapter in Cuban history in which the Bacardis have not played a role. In chronicling the saga of this remarkable family and the company that bears its name, Tom Gjelten describes the intersection of business and power, family and politics, community and exile.

The Washington Post - Linda Robinson

Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba is at once a colorful family saga and a carefully researched corrective to caricatures of decadent pre-revolutionary Cuba and the 50-year disaster of Fidel Castro's rule…The Bacardi liquor story is every bit as engaging as Cuba's tumultuous political history, and both narrative strands are inexorably intertwined.

The New York Times - Barry Gewen

There's a shelf of histories [on Cuba] to consult. But it's hard to imagine that any is as enjoyable as Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba by Tom Gjelten, a correspondent for National Public Radio. His book is as smooth and refreshing as a well-made daiquiri…What makes Mr. Gjelten's book such a standout is its quality of subjectivity. Presenting his history through the lives of people who affected the events they personally experienced and were in turn affected by them, he gives us drama, not chronology or statistics.

The New York Times Book Review - Randy Kennedy

…succeeds in painting a vivid portrait of the company's early, scrappy years and its prominent role in the fight against Spanish rule. Emilio Bacardi, especially, comes to life as the book's most powerful character, though one so strange that Gabriel Garcia Marquez might have invented him…Gjelten also provides a fascinating look at how the company built itself into the multinational giant it has become

Publishers Weekly

The commonplace view of Cuba's prerevolutionary business establishment as a corrupt kleptocracy is revised in this intriguing history of the Bacardi rum company and its involvement in Cuban politics. NPR correspondent Gjelten (Sarajevo Daily) paints the 146-year-old distiller, once an icon of Cuban industry, as a model corporate citizen-efficient, innovative, socially responsible and union-tolerant. Its leaders were pillars of nationalist politics, he contends: company president Emilio Bacardi was a leader of Cuba's rebellion against Spain, and in the 1950s CEO José Bosch helped fund Castro's insurrection. (After Castro nationalized Bacardi's Cuban holdings, Bosch started funding anti-Castro exiles.) Bacardi's image as Cuban-nationalism-in-a-bottle becomes farcical when the company, now a multinational behemoth, fights an absurd court battle with Cuba's state rum company over the "Havana Club" trademark. But Gjelten's account of a liberal, progressive Cuban business clan complicates and enriches the conventional picture of a society torn between right and left dictatorships. (Sept.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Susan Hurst - Library Journal

Equal parts company history, family history, and country history, this is a history of Cuba as filtered through a tall rum and Coke. Gjelten, a noted NPR correspondent, follows the Bacardi family tree back to Facundo Bacardi, who started the rum business in 1862. From there the tumultuous stories of Cuba and Bacardi are intertwined, through the Cuban revolution in 1868, the Spanish American War in 1898, Prohibition in the United States in the 1920s, Batista's coup in 1952, and finally Fidel Castro's takeover in 1958. After the Bay of Pigs in 1961, Bacardi property in Cuba was seized and production was moved to Mexico and other locations. The all-important Bacardi trademark stayed with the family, enabling them to use brand leverage to strengthen U.S. and European sales and thus make up for their loss of income and property in Cuba. By 1983, Bacardi accounted for two-thirds of the world's rum sales. With the passing of power from Fidel, Bacardi may yet return to its homeland. Overall, Gjelten has concocted an interesting combination of corporate and political history. Purchase where there is interest.

Kirkus Reviews

A refreshing history of the folks who brought the world the Cuba libre, and who agitate for a Cuba libre even today. The Bacardi rum dynasty is now headquartered in Puerto Rico, but its origins are Cuban-and, writes NPR correspondent Gjelten (Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege, 1995), Cuban of a particular kind, nationalistic and proud. The 19th-century residents of Santiago were mostly Catalan businesspeople and artisans who, contrary to countless stereotypes, were renowned for their work ethic and thriftiness. The Bacardi empire grew from a small shop, spearheaded by a light, dry, tasty rum that "became the drink of choice . . . just as Cuba was becoming a nation." Thereafter it was tied up, in a complicated way, with Cuban self-identity, celebrated by Hemingway and by countless Cuban intellectuals, diplomats and even dissidents. Indeed, writes Gjelten, the far-flung Bacardi family was also well known for standing in opposition to the various tinhorn tyrants who followed independence, notably Fulgencio Batista. In a nicely ironic moment, Gjelten observes that Batista, a former army sergeant, came to power thanks to American fears of a Communist Cuba in the 1930s. The Bacardis were progressive and seemingly incorruptible, which put them at odds with that reactionary, thoroughly corrupt regime. They also ran afoul, however, of Fidel Castro, whom most of the Bacardis supported to some degree or another, but who moved to nationalize the rum industry. In the bargain, Fidel made of the Bacardis a powerful foe-though, like most Cubans in exile, its members "repeatedly misjudged conditions in Cuba and made erroneous predictions," particularly on the matter of when Castrowould leave office and his revolution would collapse. A solid, journalistic treatment of commercial and political history, of a piece with Tom Miller's Trading with the Enemy (1992), Ann Louise Bardach's Cuba Confidential (2002) and other studies of the island. Agent: Gail Ross/Gail Ross Literary Agency

What People Are Saying

Kai Bird
A marvelous blend of biography and vivid history. This book will surely become essential reading to understanding both Cuba's tragic past and the island's post-Castro future. A stunning achievement from a versatile journalist. (Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer)

Ronald Steel
With a novelist's sense of drama and a historian's understanding of the social forces that shape our lives, Tom Gjelten has captured vividly -- through the chronicle of a powerful family's fortunes -- one of the great political dramas of our time. (Ronald Steel, author of Walter Lippmann and the American Century)

Louis A. Perez Jr.
Contained within family genealogy are often found profound insights into the history of an entire people. The Bacardнs represent one such family. Gjelten has fashioned a splendid prism through which to cast new light on the human dimensions of the Cuban past. The epochal transitions of Cuban national formation are experienced through successive generations of Bacardнs, revealing the complex ways that a people are overtaken by the forces of their own creation. Anyone with an interest in Cuban history–and a fondness for Cuban rum–will find the Bacardн family history irresistible. (Louis A. Perez, Jr., J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Jim Stavridis
Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba explores and illuminates the story of our nearest and largest Caribbean island neighbor in an utterly unique and fundamentally revealing way. Tom Gjelten has written a book that is a 'must read' for scholars, policy makers, and indeed anyone interested in the long, hard journey of Cuba -- and for what will happen there next. A brilliant job! (Admiral Jim Stavridis, U.S. Navy, Commander, U.S. Southern Command)