Sugar Baron

"Sugar Baron is a brilliant, highly original narrative of the fluctuating fortunes of Cuba and its sugar industry during the republican period."—Franklin W. Knight, professor emeritus, Johns Hopkins University

"McAvoy's 'subject' is not simply Manuel Rionda as an individual, but the entire history of U.S.-Cuban relations from the Spanish-Cuban-American War to the Revolution of 1933. Believe it or not, such a story can be told from the vantage point of this one individual, and McAvoy has done it in exemplary fashion."—Cesar Ayala, University of California, Los Angeles

“This excellent book recounts the fascinating career of Rionda, a Spanish immigrant to Cuba who later moved to the US and became one of the most important sugar brokers in the world. . . . A major contribution to US as well as Cuban history. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice

“A wonderfully detailed study written with care and judiciousness. . . . An essential book for anyone working on modern Cuban history and modern business history.”—Journal of Latin American Studies

“Excellent. . . . Does a good job on a very complicated subject.”—Latin American Research Review

“A fascinating portrait of a dynamic entrepreneur whose experiences illuminate the evolving international sugar industry and the Cuban-U.S. economic relations before the Revolution.”—New West Indian Guide

“McAvoy’s detailed biography of Manuel Rionda’s domination of the Cuban sugar industry through his stewardship of the largest sugar company on the island known as the Cuban Cane Sugar Corporation fills a large void in the historical scholarship.”—Florida Historical Quarterly

“In this well-crafted, fast-paced biographical narrative, Muriel McAvoy offers an inside look into the life of one of Cuba’s great modernizing commercial and industrial pioneers.”—Business History Review

“McAvoy’s well-written book allows us to know with considerable precision the framework of business and financial relations involved in both the transformation and modernization of the Cuban sugar industry at the end of the nineteenth century and the opening of the business to financial capital in the twentieth century.”—Journal of Economic History

“A well-told narrative of people and finances. . . . Provides us with a very complex portrait of Cuba, the United States, and the world of sugar in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”—Enterprise & Society