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 enlarge | Author: T. J. English
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $14.99
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Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 8966
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0061147710
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.106097291
EAN: 9780061147715
ASIN: 0061147710
Publication Date: June 1, 2008
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Condition: BRAND NEW, IN-HOUSE READY TO SHIP!!! NOT A BARGAIN, REMAINDER OR BOOKCLUB BOOK!!! WE ARE A 5 STAR SELLER.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Enjoyable but needs perspective August 8, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is an enjoyable and eye-opening book about the mob's presence in Havana's tourism and gambling operations that ended with the revolution. English has clearly done his homework on the mob and he has captured the characters and personalities of the mobsters; but at the same time the mob has captured English. He clearly has, to some degree, become enamored with their escapades and seems less skeptical than he should be about some of the stories they tell (for example, he expresses no doubts when some old mobsters infer that they assassinated JFK). As a result, he vastly overstates the importance of the mob in relationship to the Batista regime and downplays the importance of the other industrial enterprises in Cuba (for example, he doesn't make the obvious connection that the reason the revolution targeted sugar and petroleum rather than the casinos was that the former were far more important than the latter). But these are relatively small criticisms; the book is interesting throughout and brings to life a chapter in history that is now only remembered through the lens of Godfather II.
Interesting, important, and overblown August 7, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Everyone knows the mob was involved in Cuba if only because of The Godfather, Part II (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition). People also know that Kennedy and the CIA tried to use the mob, angry over losing Cuba, to kill CastroThe Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations in Cuba, 1959-1965. This book tries to take us back to the days just before the revolution and the Cuba 'that was' in order to reveal the immoral cesspool that sparked the revolution.
The book focuses on Meyer Lansky, a brilliant mobster and his relationship with Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban leader, and how together with other mobsters they 'owned Cuba'. Indeed that was the perspective from Havana where the night life never ended and prostitution was rampent. It was no surprise that Castro declared a war on prostitution when he retook Havana, if only because he saw it as a form of racism with Cuban women being sold to the highest bidder from the U.S and Europe. The book gives many up close and personal looks at this underside. But the book inflates the role of the mob ot epic proportions, as has been done in movies, ignoring the rest of Cuba. Perhaps this was Batistas real crime, he ignored the rest of the country. But does this mean Cuba has deserved 50 years of dictatorship with the same isle of pines used for political prisoners? Prostitution is back today in Cuba with women traded themselves for cans of food from European foreigners. The real tragedy apparently was that Cuba could not have some in-between between Havana nights and the daily toil of the countryside.
Seth J. Frantzman
 fake news brings one to real "news" August 6, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Heard the author interviewed on the Colbert Report and was blown away.
English illustrated why the book is a must read. Downplaying the JFK assertations the work is a through review of those "bury your head under the desk" years so many of us old people recall all too vividly.
If you don't understand the Fidel dynamics after this read you are deluding yourself. One can see why FC has ruled for six decades.
Kudos Mr. English
havana nocturne August 5, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
most interesting-I was in Cuba from time to time between 1956 and 1859 and stayed at the Havana Rivera hotel.
Two Visionaries On A Collision Course August 4, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
As an historian, I have long been fascinated by the Cuba of the 1950's and the role the Mafia played in it--maybe because I was too young at the time to ever see it. However, I do remember, as a teen, Castro's rise and the revolution he brought to Cuba. Anyone who has seen "The Godfather Part II" has seen a Hollywood fictionalized version of how much of this happened.
"Havana Nocturne" is a well researched, mostly gripping non fiction account of how two totally different philosophical and polictical forces regarding the destiny of Cuba emerged on a collison course that became history as we know it. In a sense, T.J. English provides the real story behind "The Godfather Part II".
The background stories and factoids regarding the most infamous mafiosos of our time from Meyer Lansky to Bugsy Siegal to Lucky Luciano to Santo Trafficante, to Albert Anastasia are fascinating and addicting. Equally, tidbits and historical details of American celebrities from Sinatra to Lucille Ball, Tony Bennet, JFK, George Raft, Ginger Rogers, and many others who became involved in the Cuban expansion of the 1950's are especially entertaining.
Two major storylines emerged for this reader. The first is the wonderment of the vision of the Jewish mob leader Meyer Lansky who envisioned one day controlling the entire Caribbean as a gambling, money laundering, economic arm of the Mafia--with Cuba as the foundation for this dream. Even though the dream was hatched in the 1920's, and put on hold due to the Great Depression and World War II, English explains that Lansky and Luciano never gave up the dream--they just deferred it.
English details the corruption in Cuba that was rampant from its independence in 1898 and how the people docilely accepted strong man after strong man as leaders who most often were puppets or at least sympathetic to American economic interests in Cuba. This corruption of leadership was epitomized by Lansky and the mob controlling and supporting Fulgencia Batista through more than two decades in a partnership that resulted in unprecedented casino development, hotel building, and tourist expansion in Cuba's history.
The second major storyline and most interesting to this reader was how the efforts of one genius, Lansky, ultimately entered on a collision course with the dreams of another visionary, Fidel Castro, as to what the future of Cuba would look like. English deftly interweaves the two stories of Lansky's empire building through corruption and graft with the slow starting but hard charging finish of Castro and his Revolution that ultimately changed Cuba, the mob, and world history to some extent.
It is all depicted in "Havana Nocturne"...the dreams, the empire building, the corruption, the killings, the machinations of mob and governmental leaders, and the growth of a people's revolution that soon turned bad. All the dirty laundry of the time from gambling, cheating, sordid sex, drugs, murder for hire, and celebrity involvement in this cesspool of criminal corruption is revealed for the reader.
Certainly of interest is how historically close Batista came to eliminating Castro forever and let the chance slip away along with the one significant miscalculation of Lansky and the mob that Castro could never gain power and if he did, he would continue the graft just as every other Cuban leader had.
Although the pacing is uneven at times, the history in this book is fascinating to read. English has commendably researched the topic from lengthy interviews with survivors of the period, to well documented sourcing of biographies, news accounts, and hisories to bring the reader a wonderful account of what was and what might have been Cuba today. I recomend this to anyone interested in the era.
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