Introduction

Independence meant the new republic of Cuba had a unique opportunity and responsibility to make public health a matter of the highest state concern. These early debates in the earliest months of the Cuban Republic reveal an ambitious and far-reaching political project to join science and statecraft and secure health as a fundamental right of citizenship. This book explains how ideas about government and personal responsibility for health emerged during the transition from colony to republic, shaped the development of new health institutions and the lives of Havana’s residents, and were contested, transformed, and taken up by ever-broader swaths of the urban population to make claims about citizenship and state responsibility. It examines the post-colonial history of Havana as urban residents confronted disease and early death during a period of dizzying political, economic, and scientific change from 1897-1935. It contends that, over time, the growing interactions between the urban poor and the agents of the expanding public health state were transformative for both. The introduction provides a brief history of medical nationalism in postcolonial Cuba, the changes and medical landscape in Havana, and expanding collective rights in Latin America. It also provides a summary of the structure of the book.