The Havana archive

Havana: Once the playground of the rich and famous, where Cuban rum flowed in legendary nightclubs, luxury hotels, and casinos, and celebrities danced the mambo till dawn—as well as a vital hub for drug running and money laundering. This fascinating book, drawn from an archive of press photographs and ephemera thought to have been the property of Capone-era Chicago gangster and bookie Grover Dullard, captures the essence of Havana from the 1920s through the ’50s with a wealth of evocative detail. Photographer Basil Hyman discovered this trove of Cuban treasures in Paris, and it led him on a voyage of discovery to Havana’s rich past. His book’s unique visual approach builds a picture of glamour and decadence in a mixture of photographs and memorabilia—postcards, menus, cocktail napkins, matchbooks, and much more; some reproduced as removable facsimiles. This book will transport the reader back to a long-lost world