Product Review

Featuring hundreds of vintage photographs, postcards, brochures, and other materials evocative of time and place, Havana Before Castro: When Cuba Was a Tropical Playground documents how the city of Havana evolved from Prohibition haven and rich man's playground to a heady blend of glittering nightclubs, outrageous cabarets, all-night bars, and backstreet brothels. Here, captured in one amazing book, is the drama, passion, intrigue, and opulence of a legendary city during its heyday-before the Castro dictatorship re-imagined the country and Americans were banned from travel to this tropical paradise.An architectural historian by profession, Peter Moruzzi is an acknowledged expert on mid-century Modern architecture and design. He is the founder of the Palm Springs Modern Committee, an internationally recognized historic preservation organization, and the writer/director of Desert Holiday, a documentary film chronicling the history of Palm Springs as seen through vintage postcards. He resides in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles and in Palm Springs.(20080515)