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

"Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba" was written by longtime NPR reporter Tom Gjelten, and my copy came with a sticker on the cover saying it was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. For better and worse, that tells you most of what you need to know about "Bacardi."

"Bacardi" is well written and well researched, and tells a lively narrative with interesting details about the extended Bacardi family and rum business they founded, as well as the times they lived through in Cuba and abroad, from the early 1800s to today. Not simply a dry history book, "Bacardi" calls out for being read on the beach, perhaps with a cocktail in your hand. If you're the kind of person who loves history on any topic as long at it's a good story, read "Bacardi" and you'll love it.

That said, there are some flaws. 1) While Gjelten provides a brief overview of the rum-making process, there is really very little in here on the rum Bacardi was making or how it was made. There's little sense of how the product changed over time, different methods, or different types of rum. Occasionally Gjelten mentions some improvement was made or that Bacardi sold high end and low end rum, but if you're looking for a detailed dissection of Bacardi's rum and its portfolio of products, it's not here. 2) Similarly, Gjelten picks out four or five members of the extended Bacardi family, and recounts their public lives in a rather fawning manner. Yet we don't hear about how they were personally. We may hear that someone had a black sheep son or a big house, but that is told in passing and we never get a picture of how the great rum baron ignored his children and caused the black sheep, or how the rum baron acted in private, or how the rum baron spent his wealth. Along those lines, while Gjelten tells us about four or five Bacardis, he doesn't provide too much info on the larger extended family members. If you want to read about the human characteristics of a wealthy family, it isn't here. We also never hear about the fact that the Bacardi's made their money selling a product that, in part, is responsible for good deal of addiction and suffering around the world (would Gjelten be so fawning if the book was about a family that made cars or guns?). 3) As to the Bacardi business, Gjelten gets better at this in later chapters, but until the 1970s we hear only that the business is doing well or went through some hard times, but Gjelten doesn't provide any hard numbers or comparisons with other liquor companies or Cuban businesses to allow the reader to really tell, comparatively and precisely, how well the business was doing and how it was succeeding. There is a reason NPR and the NYT are better known for narrative than business reporting. If you're looking for hardcore details on supply chains, distribution networks, labor negotiations, marketing strategies, and a real nuts and bolts, close study of a business, it's not here (Gjelten does generally hit on these topics, but only in a way that leaves most detailed business questions unanswered--in his defense, this is a popular history, not a B-School textbook).

Continuing with that NPR/NYT train of thought, "Bacardi" is long, very long, on discussions of Cuban "identity." Similarly, Gjelten doesn't miss a chance to praise the "progressive" politics of the Bacardi family, express puzzlement at a corporation acting as a responsible citizen, criticize the Catholic Church, point out how Americans are racist, ridicule American politicians who criticized Castro when he first seized power, slip in a jab a Reagan, call the Washington Times the "conservative Washington Times" while on the same page there is no reference to which way the New York Times leans, or to state that the Bacardi opposition to Castro was based on revenge because Castro seized their property rather than the fact that Castro ran a brutal communist dictatorship (and one is left to wonder if Gjelten would see those last 3 words as redundant). Gjelten even glowingly welcomes the return of farmers' markets to Cuba in the 1990s, no doubt a good place to pick up free range kale. There are plenty of other examples in here of Gjelten's leanings, but these are just a few that stick out.

Still, while written from the NPR/NYT point of view, "Bacardi" is no political propaganda, and for the most part provides a straight forward narrative in an accessible and entertaining fashion. While it is easy to want more on the rum itself, or on the real family dynamics, or on the actual internal business workings of the company than are provided here, or to roll your eyes as Gjelten once more discusses how the Bacardi's and their rum are truly Cuban, just relax, put on your sunglasses, and make yourself another drink instead.

I just finished this book in the audiobook form, and it's a wonderfully written (and narrated) book that keeps you interested in the intricacies of Cuban history through the interwoven story of the Bacardi family. It's gives the myriad cast of characters enough personal and historical detail that you don't feel drowned in details while also making it possible to learn much about the broad development of the Cuban nation and the Bacardi business empire.

That said, the major caveat is that the book is extremely lopsided in its allegiances. It is clearly a pro-Bacardi book, and the author has a strong point of view. With no personal skin in the game in the Cuban story, I enjoyed learning about the Bacardis, but I did find myself wishing at certain points in the narrative that the author spent more time disassembling some of the less savory aspects of the Bacardi story (slave ownership and their lobbying entanglements) and presenting a more nuanced view of those on the other side of their story. When he reached parts of the story that would have been less complimentary of the Bacardis, he tended to not delve as deeply into the details and offered unsophisticated reasons for the motivations of the family. You couldn't help but feel that he was selective in how he used his research and told the story.

Nevertheless, if you can look past the biased nature of the story, it's quite a good one and should be read as part of a broader education on Cuban history. Highly recommend!

Cuba is an enigma for Americans. Between images of Castro's ranting, detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and strands of history from the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis, few in the USA have much knowledge of the depth of history in Cuba, and how much of that is intertwined with the US over the course of the 20th century. Reading this book helps to alleviate such ignorance. The author intertwines the history of Cuba, with that of its most successful native business family, the Bacardis, and the business empire they created out of Cuban rum.

Starting back in the 1800's and progressing forward, this book shows how the Bacardi family started out, how they got into the rum making business, and how they came to become the leading business family of Cuba. Highlighting both their business acumen, and their progressive labor - company relations, the book provides a solid understanding of how to succeed in business, any business. The Bacardi company are one of the first in Cuba to adopt many modern business practices, such as quality control techniques based on scientific and statistical analysis, to market branding, to the separation of family from business, to becoming leaders in both the local business and social communities. Along the way Cuba experiences multiple revolutions and political upheavals that the Bacardi family and company navigate and survive. Until Castro. First acting as a backer of the Castro's 26th of July Movement, the Bacardi family comes to regret this as Castro nationalizes the Bacardi company along with all other private business in the country. The last third of the book shows how the Bacardi family, both the smaller blood family and the larger business family, escaped Cuba and settled in other places, primarily Florida. Forced out of their home, they would look forward and turn Bacardi into a multinational business empire, leaving Cuba and Castro behind to Third World poverty and a stagnating political climate.

So if anything, this book is about adversity, and how to triumph over it, both personally and in business. The book is also a great resource to help understand the interplay between business and government, between business rivals within a given industry, and most of all, between the different stakeholders in a business, starting from the lowliest employees up all the way to the founding fathers... Overall, a great book.

This book is an excellent, well written history lesson wrapped around the lives of the Bacardi family. As a Cuban-American it pains me to read once again about how we have squandered our treasure, "La Patria, la Perla del Caribe," through petty jealousies, unbridled egotism and hunger for power, not just by Cubans, but by the USA as well. The gall of legislation such as the Platt Amendment, and more recently the Burton-Helms Act, among others, serve to fuel tyrants such as Fidel and his seemingly never ending cry against American imperialism that enslaves the nation of Cuba.
Tom Gjelton does an excellent job of delivering a detailed history of Cuba and the Bacardi family. He most accurately portrays the main characters of the latest Cuban saga in a very objective light: Castro, Raul, and perhaps most importantly Che Guevara. He shows that throughout the history of Cuba there were respected individuals such as the Bacardi family that were dedicated to family and country, but time and again our famous Cuban pride, temper, and sense of entitlement has clouded our judgement. We, the exiled Cubans and those back on the island, are condemned to repeat repeat history time and again. We are our own worst enemy. As a fellow author on Cuba I highly recommend this book.

There has recently been a renewed interest in pre-revolutionary Cuba. This stems from the fact that Cuba today is so un-romantic, so poor and stricken with prostitution, that peopel want to understand not only the pre-history of Castro but also the time before Castro. This has given us new studies of the Mafia in Cuba (Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution) and recent books on the Americans who fought in the revolution. This book examines a previously unstudied subject, the history of the Bacardi family and Cuba. Most would have assumed the family, being some of the wealthier citizens of the island, would not have been Castro supporters or progressive in the least bit. But the truth is quite different. The patriarch of the dynasty was a fighter in the original war against Spain in the 1890s and by the 1950s they were disillusioned with Batista. This is an excellent history of this family and its biography, which in many ways is the biography of Cuba itself in this period. A very nice book that fills both a gap in history and sheds light on a fascinating story.

Seth J. Frantzman

Looking for insights on Cuban history, culture, politics, Castro--this is a good historical exposition of a country that has gone through more turmoil and experiments in government than perhaps any other in the Western hemisphere. Looking for an informative and exciting narrative about a family owned company--this is a very moving story of a strong-willed entrepreneurial family blessed with three masterful CEOs in succession who figured out how to succeed worldwide despite being headquartered in a relatively unsophisticated financial backwater. Put these two stories together and the result is the proverbial whole being greater than the sum of its parts: an excellent journey juxtaposing financial acumen combined with patriotism, on the one hand, against a variety of dismaying governmental experiments, on the other, including Spanish colonialism, years of revolution, US intervention, embryonic democracy, dictatorship, and a Marxist state economic system. This was obviously a labor of love for Gjelten, a first rate NPR reporter and analyst, as reflected in the source documentation provided unobtrusively at the end of the book, the very thorough and useful Bacardi family tree and the extensive photograph collection that brings even more life to the already well-drawn characters.

Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, Ernest Hemingway, Mafia dons, Meyer Lansky, JFK, are all among the colorful cast of this excellent Cuban history. Author makes the extra effort to make the narrative as interesting as possible with a nice touch of cliffhanger chapter endings.

If the possibility of the United States normalizing its relationship with Cuba suggests that you ought to know more about Cuban history than you do, this book offers a good way to begin. Gjelten uses the Bicardi family, immigrants from Catalonian Spain, to focus on the history of the now worldwide rum enterprise bearing their name, and also on the history and culture of Cuba through their enterprise. It makes for a very readable perspective and one that allows for an examination of Cuban issues from the mid-nineteenth century to today: colonialism, nationalism, the after effects of slavery, labor vs. management, communism, and relationships between a resident and an exile community.
Gjelten also uses the Bacardi enterprise to consider the pros and cons of a private family business compared to a publicly owned business during this period of internationalism. Although published in 2008, this book remains relevant to the issues of a post-Castro Cuban relationship with the United States, the ultimate issues of Cuban governance, and the relationship between current Cuban residents and the exiled Cuban community and any rights they might retain on the island. It is an excellent window for beginning to understand Cuba and its complicated history.

Very well written. While not a novel in the traditional sense, it reads like one in the sense of character and plot development. The history of Cuba is expressed through the lives of the Bacardi family and their business. It is intriguing to see how the political situation there changed and developed over the years, including the US involvement.

Tom Gjelten has written an excellent pose on the Cuban history, political relations between the U.S. and Cuba, and managing a family oriented enterprise. Tom has captured the foundational principals supporting capitalism at its best, and sadly documents how 'money' is undermining our very Republic. Excellent reading and will make for a solid foundation in any college Economics 100 level course.

I enjoyed learning about the history of Cuba. I didn't know about the "real" part the USA played in the history of Cuba. That was eye opening to read the truth, at times ugly, about the role politics and greed played in Cuba's struggle for freedom. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to learn about our past in order to understand our present.

Written in an easy to read style, the book describes the last 150 yrs of cuban politics from the standpoint of a substantial Cuban company. For me, knowing more about Cuba and nothing about Barcadi, the most interesting part was how a family owned and run organization has survived this long, with all the realities of poltical, commercial, and family life.

Its good to read the Cuban experience from a variety of experience but this book is clearly "Barcadi friendly." I rated it a 2 for this issue and because I thought it could expound more on the inner workings of the Barcardi company, providing more data and given more on their competitiors to get a better understanding of how Barcadi became the industry leaders in Cuba then the world. There's plenty of general statements saying Barcadi was a better employer than most but not any real information to let the reader make that determination.

This book is a small part of Cuban history for the simple fact that the experience of the Cuban elite represents a small portion of Cubans, although the most vocal on U.S. shores for a variety of reasons.Its not that I expected this book to be about the everyday Cuban. As the author notes, to say the Barcadi's experiences in Cuba really relates to ordinary Cubans would not be true. For a well rounded reading of Cuba, the perspective of the elite, even as well intentioned and nationalistic as the author claims, this book would be a small part of my library.

Written in an easy to read style, the book describes the last 150 yrs of cuban politics from the standpoint of a substantial Cuban company. For me, knowing more about Cuba and nothing about Barcadi, the most interesting part was how a family owned and run organization has survived this long, with all the realities of poltical, commercial, and family life.

Its good to read the Cuban experience from a variety of experience but this book is clearly "Barcadi friendly." I rated it a 2 for this issue and because I thought it could expound more on the inner workings of the Barcardi company, providing more data and given more on their competitiors to get a better understanding of how Barcadi became the industry leaders in Cuba then the world. There's plenty of general statements saying Barcadi was a better employer than most but not any real information to let the reader make that determination.

This book is a small part of Cuban history for the simple fact that the experience of the Cuban elite represents a small portion of Cubans, although the most vocal on U.S. shores for a variety of reasons.Its not that I expected this book to be about the everyday Cuban. As the author notes, to say the Barcadi's experiences in Cuba really relates to ordinary Cubans would not be true. For a well rounded reading of Cuba, the perspective of the elite, even as well intentioned and nationalistic as the author claims, this book would be a small part of my library.