Cuba—mysterious, intoxicating, captivating. Whether you’re planning to go or have just returned, Cuba, Hot and Cold is essential for your bookshelf. With a keen eye and dry wit, author Tom Miller takes readers on an intimate journey from Havana to the places you seldom find in guidebooks.

A brilliant raconteur and expert on Cuba, Miller is full of enthralling behind-the-scenes stories. His subjects include one of the world’s most resourceful master instrument makers, the famous photo of Che Guevara, and the explosion of the USS Maine. A veteran of the underground press of the 1960s, Miller describes the day Cuba’s State Security detained him for distributing copies of the United Nations Human Rights Declaration of 1948 and explains how the dollar has become the currency of necessity. His warm reminiscences explain the complexities of life in Cuba.

Since his first visit to the island thirty years ago, Miller has shown us the real people of Havana and the countryside, the Castros and their government, and the protesters and their rigor. His first book on Cuba, Trading with the Enemy, brought readers into the “Special Period,” Fidel’s name for the country’s period of economic free fall. Cuba, Hot and Cold brings us up to date, providing intimate and authentic glimpses of day-to-day life.

 

Tom Miller has been writing about Latin America and the American Southwest for more than four decades. His highly praised books include Trading with the Enemy and Revenge of the Saguaro, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, LIFE, Rolling Stone, and Natural History, among other outlets. He is affiliated with the University of Arizona’s Center for Latin American Studies, and at a 2008 ceremony, the City of Quito proclaimed Miller Un Huésped Ilustre (An Illustrious Guest).

“Deftly written, keenly understood, soft-spokenly incisive, if there's one book about Cuba you read before you go, make it Cuba, Hot and Cold.”—La Bloga

“[Cuba, Hot and Cold] offers a delightful 107 pages of insightful, mostly anecdotal, vignettes spanning history, politics and, of course, Cuba’s often confounding and always defiantly soulful culture.”—Chris Baker

"A wryly engaging romp through the extraordinary Caribbean island nation that Tom Miller knows so well. For the uninitiated, it’s all here: Havana, the music, the Malecón, the ’50s Chevys, Hemingway, Che and Fidel and ‘Remember the Maine.’ But beyond all that, there is a real sense here of the Cubans in all their larger-than-lifeness and smartass wit. If you are going to read one book before you go to Cuba, make it this one, for pleasure’s sake."—Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life