Torn between Empires

This in-depth, comparative study focuses on the economy, society, and political culture of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Viewing developments as they relate to the countries' common heritage of insularity, colonialism, and slavery, Luis Martínez-Fernández points out profound, underlying balance-of-power transformations during a time of ostensibly small change in the region's political status.