The Merchant of Havana

"Silverstein puts a new twist to the discussion about slavery and the rise of capitalism by looking at the key role debt had in transforming the upper echelons of Cuban society, and the reason why the image of Shylock became so rooted in their imaginary."
—Ariana Huberman, author of Gauchos and Foreigners: Glossing Culture and Identity in the Argentine Countryside

"[Silverstein] argues convincingly that we can neither fully understand Afro-Cuban racial identities nor the mechanism of racial hierarchies in Cuba unless we also comprehend the role of the merchant class, foreign-born bourgeoisie, and the lexicon of Jewish usury in nineteenth-century Cuba."
—Amelia Weinreb, author of Cuba in the Shadow of Change: Daily Life in the Twilight of the Revolution