The Cubans, a photographic book with English and Spanish text, is distributed by the University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville for Documentary Photography Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Photographs by Jack Beckham Combs. Foreword by Jennifer L. McCoy. Essay by Julia E. Sweig. 192 pp., 160 color illustrations, 9½x12". 2010.
Jack Combs has been making photographs of the Cuban people over the course of eight years and fifteen vists to the island. His images range from the urban to the rural, from vibrant street scenes full of movement to serene agricultural landscapes. Much of Combs’ time was spent outside of Havana, traveling to cities, towns, and villages, in every Cuban province. The people and settings in Combs’ photographs demonstrate that Cubans may have less than they need materially, but they are nonetheless a people of strength, good humor, and great national pride.
Jennifer L. McCoy is Director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program and arranged and accompanied President Jimmy Carter on his visit to Cuba in 2002. In her foreward, she gives time and place to Cuba's recent history.
Julia E. Sweig is the Rockefeller Senior Fellow and Director of Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. In her essay, Dr. Sweig ponders the future of Cuba and the Cubans and the factors that make this conundrum so complex, but one that is sure to result in change.