At first glance, books about the markedly different subjects of the gangster presence in Cuba in the 1950s and early 1960s and the life of Celia Sánchez Manduley seem highly improbable candidates for a combined review. Whereas the former book delves into the activities of Mafia godfathers Meyer Lansky and Santo Trafficante, Jr., in Cuba before and during the early years of Fidel Castro's regime, the latter explores the myth of the Cuban national godmother, Celia Sánchez. The journalist Jack Colhoun discusses the Mafia's efforts at the behest of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to overthrow Castro, and the academic historian Tiffany A. Sippial explores the media-shy Cuban revolutionary heroine. The books offer two notable recent examples of writing on Cuban history and stand out for their methodological thoroughness and innovativeness, taking 18 years for Colhoun to complete and 22 years for Sippial. Colhoun goes the extra mile in...

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