Guantanamo has been in the headlines as a prison for so many years that its history as a naval base, a source of contention with Cuba, and a symbol of America's century-old hegemonic ambitions in the Caribbean have become obscured. Hansen, lecturer at Harvard (The Lost Promise of Patriotism), presents Guantanamo's military, political, and cultural history in a work combining comprehensive research and critical perspective. He begins with the arrival of Columbus in 1494, analyzes the geology that made Guantanamo Bay one of the Caribbean's strategic focal points, and describes its occupation by U.S. Marines in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. Hansen presents that as merely one element of America's systematic discounting of the Cubans' contribution to Spain's defeat-and the accompanying conviction that Cubans were unfit for self-government. The 1903 cession of Guantanamo as a naval base confirmed Cuba's dependent status and was a subject of contention even before Fidel Castro's 1959 seizure of power. Since then Guantanamo's status as a political symbol has come to outweigh its significance as an operational base. Hansen approvingly quotes a senior officer who dismissed Guantanamo as adding "absolutely nothing to the navy" strategically. Yet Cubans can also foresee the U.S. presence "as salutary as it is humiliating"-a refuge for dissidents fleeing Castro's regime. 16 pages of b&w illus.; map. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Hansen (social studies, Harvard; The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890-1920) here isn't simply presenting the history of America's naval base (GTMO) on the southeastern coast of Cuba; his story takes readers from the arrival of Columbus to the 2002 arrival of prisoners in the so-called war on terror. The perfect deep-water port, Guantanamo was once the U.S. Navy's ideal base in the Caribbean, but its strategic value had diminished over the years, and it was seldom in the news until the post-9/11 period. Hansen places GTMO in an international and regional perspective, recalling the role of the base during Castro's revolution in a fascinating chapter and concluding with a revealing chapter on the "Gitmo" prison. He never loses the Cuban perspective and the internal divisiveness here at home about Guantanamo's future. VERDICT More comprehensive than Stephen Irving Max Schwab's Guantanamo USA, this well-researched and well-written book will appeal to all readers but especially to those interested in American history as it relates to Cuba and the Caribbean.-Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Libs., AL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

For many Americans, Guantanamo is known only as a high-security Cuban prison, in which dangerous Islamic terrorists are detained. But that status is a very recent development, as Harvard social-studies lecturer Hansen's useful and timely account reveals. Hansen traces the European discovery of this strategically important coastal area to the arrival of Columbus in 1494. In subsequent centuries, Guantanamo Bay was valued by Spain and coveted by the U.S. as a strong outpost guarding naval movements in the Caribbean Sea. After its victory in the Spanish-American War, the U.S. demanded control of Guantanamo as part of the price for accepting Cuban independence. Since then, it has remained a bone of contention that has helped poison Cuban-American relations. For Cubans, especially under Fidel Castro, it has been a humiliating reminder of American domination. Hansen convincingly asserts that the base today is a Cold War relic of limited strategic value. But it remains useful as a political tool for die-hard American opponents of normalizing relations with Cuba.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist

The word Guantanamo conjures a variety of images for Americans. This ecologically unique and once strategically valuable tropical paradise (it guards the crucial Windward Passage that gave it importance in the days of sailing ships) has been controlled by the US since 1898. In the past century, Guantanamo has served as an imperial outpost, Cold War battlefield, showcase of US materialism and prosperity, refugee center for Cubans and Haitians, and, finally, detention center deluxe for Bush's War on Terror. Hansen (Harvard) presents an excellent series of vignettes of the bay's various roles over the past 500 years. Interestingly, each new role for Guantanamo built upon an already existing one. These changing roles make this work important, while the focus on a location makes it creative. Although a significant amount of research was conducted, a bibliography would have been useful. Americans have long lusted after the bay. Now, the US might prefer to separate itself from Guantanamo and return it to Cuba, which, because of Guantanamo's various roles, would prove exceedingly difficult and enormously beneficial to Cuban-American relations. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Most levels/libraries. W. M. Weis Illinois Wesleyan University

A relentlessly critical history of America's oldest naval base and the only one in a hostile country.Hansen (Social Studies/Harvard Univ.; The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 18901920, 2003) reminds us that Cuban rebels had been holding their own for three years before Americans arrived in 1898, ostensibly to save them from Spanish tyranny. After an easy victory, American forces excluded rebels from surrender ceremonies and peace talks and demanded that their new constitution include the right to intervene in Cuban affairs, plus a lease on Guantnamo. As a result, ambitious leaders routinely declared that opponents were endangering American lives, and Marines from Guantnamo obligingly came to their aid. Under Franklin Roosevelt, the U.S. government stopped intervening but continued to support leaders who promised order and, after 1945, anticommunism. Even before Fidel Castro's arrival in 1959, Guantnamo was no longer an important base; since the '60s, it has served mostly as a holding area for refugees and prisoners. Hansen devotes an angry chapter to American treatment of Haitian arrivals (almost all returned) compared to Cubans (almost all admitted to the United States), and a final, equally angry chapter covers events after 9/11. The Bush administration sent suspected terrorists to Guantnamo because it seemed beyond the reach of journalists and, according to advisors, American legal protections. Officials proclaimed that such fanatics were immune to traditional interrogation, but enhanced techniques would reveal information vital to save American lives. The only result has been a persistent public-relations disaster.Strategically irrelevant and expensive, Guantnamo has become a political icon, so suggestions that U.S. officials leavecommon during past administrationsare no longer heard, but Hansen's distressing history may revive the idea.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.