{"product_id":"the-sugar-king-of-havana-the-rise-and-fall-of-julio-lobo-cubas-last-tycoon-9781594202582","title":"The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo  Cuba's Last Tycoon","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe son of a Cuban exile recounts the remarkable and contradictory life of famed sugar baron Julio Lobo  the richest man in prerevolutionary Cuba and the last of the islands haute bourgeoisie.  Fifty years after the Cuban revolution  the legendary wealth of the sugar magnate Julio Lobo remains emblematic of a certain way of life that came to an abrupt end when Fidel Castro marched into Havana. Known in his day as the King of Sugar  Lobo was for decades the most powerful force in the world sugar market  controlling vast swathes of the islands sugar interests. Born in 1898  the year of Cubas independence  Lobos extraordinary life mirrors  in almost lurid technicolor  the many rises and final fall of the troubled Cuban republic.  The details of Lobos life are fit for Hollywood. He twice cornered the international sugar market and had the largest collection of Napoleonica outside of France  including the emperors back teeth and death mask. He once faced a firing squad only to be pardoned at the last moment  and later survived a gangland shooting. He courted movie stars from Bette Davis to Joan Fontaine and filled the swimming pool at his sprawling estate with perfume when Esther Williams came to visit.  As Rathbone observes  such are the legends of which revolutions are made  and later justified. But Lobo was also a progressive and a philanthropist  and his genius was so widely acknowledged that Che Guevara personally offered him the position of minister of sugar in the Communist regime. When Lobo declined-knowing that their worldviews could never be compatible-his properties were nationalized  most of his fortune vanished overnight  and he left the island  never to return to his beloved Cuba.  Financial Times journalist John Paul Rathbone has been fascinated by this intoxicating  whirligig  and contradictory prerevolutionary period his entire life. His mother was also a member of Havanas storied haute bourgeoisie and a friend of Lobos daughters. Woven into Lobos tale is her familys experience of republic  revolution  and exile  as well as the authors own struggle to come to grips with Cubas  and his familys  turbulent history.  Prodigiously researched and imaginatively written  The Sugar King of Havana is a captivating portrait of the glittering end of an era  but also of a more hopeful Cuban past  one that might even provide a window into the islands future.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45965871480885,"sku":"ByrdShop_1594202583","price":20.47,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781594202582.jpg?v=1788371425","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-sugar-king-of-havana-the-rise-and-fall-of-julio-lobo-cubas-last-tycoon-9781594202582","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}