Jos e Mart i and the global origins of Cuban independence / Armando Garc ia de la Torre.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-211) and index.

The global origins of Cuban independence -- Transmitting civic values to our future citizens: Mart i's global histories for children -- The Hindu inspirations of a freedom fighter's spiritual and world outlook -- Mart i and the divine nation-state -- Mart i and the African diaspora -- Transmitting proper government: Ulysses S. Grant and the US Civil War in Mart i's imagination.

A nationalist campaigner, civil rights advocate, diplomat, lecturer and orator, journalist, poet, author of children's stories, visionary champion of anti-colonial Latin American and Caribbean thought, all are expressions of Jos e Mart i's (1853-95) extraordinary life in fighting for Cuba's definitive independence. This work opens a new path in studies of Mart i's efforts to build a modern democratic Cuba by widening the lens under which the Cuban hero has been examined. In joining these different facets of Mart i and by going beyond the national and hemispheric, Garc ia de la Torre introduces the largely ignored global influences and dimensions that marked the revolutionary's work and ideas. From Mart i's global histories for children to his adaptation of Hindu and Eastern conceptions, through a juxtaposition of The Bhagavad-Gita, to his relationships and inspirations from the African diaspora to the US Civil War and Ulysses S. Grant, Garc ia de la Torre vividly reveals the global origins of Mart i's ideas regarding governance, citizenship, independence and spirituality. In bridging the familiar and the individual with larger global patterns and processes of the late nineteenth century, this work gives birth to a modern Cuba understood from a truly global perspective.

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