The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon

by John Paul Rathbone

The 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 island's 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 island's sugar interests. Born in 1898, the year of Cuba's independence, Lobo's extraordinary life mirrors, in almost lurid technicolor, the many rises and final fall of the troubled Cuban republic.

The details of Lobo's life are fit for Hollywood. He twice cornered the international sugar market and had the largest collection of Napoleonica outside of France, including the emperor's 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 Havana's storied haute bourgeoisie and a friend of Lobo's daughters. Woven into Lobo's tale is her family's experience of republic, revolution, and exile, as well as the author's own struggle to come to grips with Cuba's, and his family's, 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 island's future.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Audiobook, Travel, Autobiography, World History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 5, 2010

Reviews

[Vladimir · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a pleasure to read for several reasons. First of all, Rathbone meticulously researched it and those who know Havana will immediately recognize various toponyms where the drama of Julio Lobo's strange life took place. I was reading this book in an apartment in Vedado, not far from where Lobo spent most of his mature years, so in a way this book had an extended effect, spilling over into my daily life. Lobo is still a rather controversial figure in Cuba and is well known especially among older Cubans who all seem to have very strong opinions about him; it was a particular pleasure to be able to fill the factual gaps with local gossip.

Another rather interesting feature of the book is its balanced presentation of life in pre-revolutionary Cuba. This is a very sensitive subject since most authors tend to romanticize this period, and Rathbone rather self-consciously falls into this trap form time to time, but far less than other authors who live and work outside of Cuba. He didn't ignore pre-revolutionary Cuba's rampant racism and class discrimination, illiteracy and poor conditions of workers. Also, he was pretty balanced in the way in which he approached Lobo's connections to Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, avoiding pointless propaganda, whether Castrist or anti-Castrist, and those who are interested in Cuban history know well enough how difficult this is to achieve.

Even if you are not very interested in the complex and frequently incomprehensible Cuban history, this book is probably going to be an interesting read, as Julio Lobo was a truly one of a kind character, a Cuban nationalist obsessed with Napoleon, capitalist who didn't care about money, a man who wasn't scared to go against dictators, to risk his life's work, or to propose to Bette Davis.

[Doctor Sax · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mercifully this one came to an end. This was written (in a very dry fashion) by a British economist and it showed. Story was bogged down by way too much exact economic stats about the sugar industry and took away from interesting subject matter (Julio Lobo). I give this a generous 2 stars, anyone interested in 1950's Havana should check out "Havana Nocturn" by T.J. English.

[Ansell · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s very clear that the author doesn’t have enough sources to make this biography come alive, so instead he just heavily seasons it with stories of his own Cuban exile family. I give him points on trying though, about time that some one painted a more nuanced picture of pre revolutionary Cuba.

[Tom Hamrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Fascinating tale of pre Communist Cuba and how on the surface every thing seems equal and everyone makes the same but in reality its no different than any fat government the ones who have will always have. Also Che used to be a kind of mystical person to me and after this he was no different that the rest, he wasnt doing these things for the people he was doing these things for he and Castro. So my previous love affair with all things Che and Castro came to an abrubt halt when I realize that just as the situation we are in currently in this country with the right and left being the same, Communist Cuba was not much different. I highly recommend this book.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of plodding. Never got into a good story groove. Too much first person. Too narrow a view of Cuba, while not enough detail about Lobo to really give a good sense of the man.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book and read the following comments by a reviewer I lost track of:

"A common assumption is that the Cuban economic elite was universally opposed to the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro from the time it took power in January 1959. But The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba’s Last Tycoon shows otherwise.

"In his book, John Paul Rathbone, the Latin America editor at the Financial Times, paints a more nuanced picture of the Cuban bourgeoisie and, in particular, of Julio Lobo (1898–1983)— the great Cuban sugar tycoon of the first half of the twentieth century. Reading like an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel with scenes reminiscent of an Elia Kazan film, the book paints vivid descriptions of Lobo’s life and Cuba in general with action on every page.

"Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1898—the year Spain’s rule over Cuba ended and the first U.S. military occupation began—Julio Lobo Olavarría rose to become a prominent businessman bound to Cuba and to sugar. When his father was hired by the North American Trust Company, the family moved to Cuba. Growing up in Havana during the early years of the First Cuban Republic (1902–1940), Lobo immediately acquired an intense political consciousness.

"Like many in Cuba’s upper-middle class, Lobo studied in the United States. Returning to Cuba in 1919, Lobo became involved in the family’s sugar business and saw the industry experience an intense cycle of growth and contraction from 1920 to 1933—the years of the Alfredo Zayas government and the Gerardo Machado dictatorship. His marriage in 1932 to María Esperanza Montalvo, a descendant of sugar industry elites, opened doors for Lobo to the Cuban bourgeoisie.

"In Rathbone’s biography, we can see detailed scenes such as Lobo in his black Chrysler, crossing through Havana late on October 11, 1960, to meet with Ché Guevara. Ché would offer Lobo directorship of the sugar industry in exchange for the nationalization of his 14 refineries and canefields, which produced 3 million tons of sugar annually, and two-thirds of his fortune, a sum then valued at some $200 million. Lobo did not give an answer; instead he returned home unable to “conceive that his empire had gone.” We also see the tycoon sharing the view that the First Republic had betrayed the dream of José Martí and that the governments of Ramón Grau (1933–1934, 1944–1948), Carlos Prío Socarrás (1948–1952) and Fulgencio Batista (1940–1944, 1952–1959) had defrauded Cuban citizens.

"Rathbone illustrates Lobo the businessman and patriot proud of his wife’s celebrated local lineage, but also the social philanthropist, the collector of art and the founder of libraries. He is cast as a Napoleonic executive who managed to acquire a vast array of art and one of the largest collections of the French emperor’s relics. Lobo admired—along with Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who would exile him—the grandeur of the Corsican soldier and politician. The 62-year-old sugar baron and the young revolutionary Castro shared ideas about José Martí and Napoleon, as well as a critical view of the U.S. role in Cuban history and a belief in the centrality of sugar to the island’s economic development.

"In short, the reader sees the archetype of the Cuban bourgeoisie sympathizing with the 1959 revolution for its nationalistic overtones, while deliberately trying to ignore its Jacobin radical energy. Through the revolution—and through Guevara in particular—Lobo came to see that it would be impossible to “keep everything as is” in the new Cuba. He was the quintessential symbol of Cuban capitalism and could not exist in the country that Castro and Ché sought to construct.

"In the last half-century, the official Cuban memory—a discourse constructed by historians, journalists, ideologues, and politicians—has addressed the figure of Lobo, and the republican elites in general, with rejection. But this rejection has often been cast in varying lights, depending on the extent to which the reality squared with the official discourse of a treasonous, selfish bourgeoisie.

"For example, between 1960 and 1980, Soviet-style Marxism-Leninism and revolutionary nationalism were being debated as the official ideology. At the time, two fundamental opinions were held about the republican bourgeoisie: either that it was not nationalist since its interests were completely subordinate to those of the U.S., or that it had never existed since the Cuban economic elite constituted some sort of subgroup within a foreign bourgeoisie that controlled the national wealth.

"As Rathbone, a disciple of the French Marxist historian Pierre Vilar, astutely observes, Julio Lobo had been the most tenacious defender of the principle “no sugar, no country” despite two risks. The first was that the view diverged from the island’s own political elites, especially from the most authoritarian ones during the Machado and Batista dictatorships—placing him at odds with these iron-fisted leaders. The second was the risk of clashing with North American policymakers that sought to raise import tariffs on Cuban producers and exporters during the First Republic and pressed for industrial diversification and for the transition of the Cuban economy during the Second Republic (1940–1958).

"Using the example of Julio Lobo, Rathbone describes how the island’s business leaders through 1958 were more nationalistic and often opposed to U.S. policies. They aspired to develop the island without abandoning the idea of sugar as its driving economic force. When he refers to Lobo as the “last tycoon,” Rathbone seeks to convey that Lobo was the last of the great businessmen to leave Cuba and that he identified his personal wealth with the national wealth.

"Those who, beneath the weight of the myths of the state, still doubt that in Cuba there was a nationalist bourgeoisie that in its own way shared more than a few of the revolution’s fundamental values, should read this book. Those who still insist the entire bourgeoisie was pro-Batista and opposed to the revolutionary government starting from January 1959 should read this book. But this book must not be read to reconstruct that lost world, but rather to understand it better, and to shed the diabolical image that official memory has imposed on it.

"His land, art and business expropriated and exiled in 1960, Julio Lobo died in Madrid in 1983, after 20 years living in a small apartment near the Paseo de la Castellana. At that time, the greatest regret of Cuba’s once-richest man was not the loss of his refineries or his stocks and bonds, but rather of the paintings of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Diego Rivera and Salvador Dalí that the Cuban state confiscated after he left the island."

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one jumped around too much for me. It was an effort.

[J.S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Before Castro and communism, Cuba was a hot-spot for celebrities and wealthy Americans who went to enjoy the tropical ambiance and the booze during prohibition. Political instability and official corruption might have been the norm, but Cuba also led the world in sugar production - and Julio Lobo was the King of Sugar. John Paul Rathbone weaves the stories of pre-revolutionary Cuba with that of Lobo and his own mother's family, whose bourgeois background put them in the same circles as Lobo. He also writes of his own efforts to reconnect with his Cuban heritage from the stories his mother told of her youth and his later travels to the island.

Interesting at times but never really compelling, I struggled with this book. Lobo is the center of the narrative, but isn't always the focus with different stories competing for attention. He was a highly intelligent businessman who twice cornered the world markets for sugar and survived a gangland-style shooting, and also seemed genuinely concerned about the welfare of his employees, yet I had difficulty feeling that it was a story that needed to be told. A multitude of characters pass through the book, and it was confusing trying to keep them straight. The history of Cuba between the 1898 revolution led by America and Castro's military coup in 1960 was vaguely enlightening, but still not enough that I ever felt truly engaged in what I had imagined would be a fascinating topic. It's disappointing to see that others enjoyed it so much more than I did, but I finished the book without any enthusiasm for it.

[Alisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story of Julio Lobo, dubbed 'The Sugar King of Havana' appropriately for his reign of the Cuban sugar industry in the post-WWII era until the takeover of Cuba by Fidel Castro. Lobo was a colorful personal character and shrewd capitalist, and that alone made for some good reading. The politics of Cuban rule is certainly part of this story as well and one that interplayed with the story of Lobo's turbulant and storied business and personal life. You get a very strong sense of Lobo - as someone who lived life with gusto, had intense and passionate beliefs and relationships, and was an unrelenting captialist with an eye for one of the world's most cherished commodities. If Julio Lobo had been born in another country, you can't help but to think he would have been an iconic titan of capitalism! The book's shortcomings lay in how the author told this story. He interjected his own family history into the story, which arguably was relevant, but the way in which he did it was too personal for my taste and distracted from the flow and tone of the book. The book would be better had he used that information more objectively. Lots of pictures - loved the visual.

[Rosemary · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be fair I didn't finish this book. Am sure there is interesting history, but a lot seemed to revolve around the author's family and I didn't think it got into the story enough. Part history and part memoir.

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pre- and post-revolution Cuba makes for an intriguing backdrop for any story, and this one is no exception, but that's about all this book has going for it. Not particularly recommended.

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provided a lot of interesting history, particularly since I knew very little about Cuba. However, not the most enthralling prose, and some of the chapters went off on long tangents.

[Bob Schmitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book written in the confusing matter. The author blends the history of Julio Lobo a Cuban sugar mill owner and sugar trader, who at one time controlled half the sugar in Cuba, with the history of wealthy Cuban sugar mill owners, with the revolutionary history of Cuba. He goes back-and-forth and skips around so that though it is filled with interesting history and interesting tidbits it is hard to follow.

Before Castro Cuba was known as the American Riviera. Havana hotels’ links to the mafia were an open secret. Marijuana, cocaine, booze and girls were freely available.

Che Guevara and Fidel Castro’s crossing or the Gulf of Mexico in November 1956 was an unmitigated disaster. It took seven days instead of five; the revolutionaries were all sick and landed in the wrong spot, the navigator had fallen overboard and the Granma ran aground on a sandbar. The men had to slog through swamps throwing way most of their equipment and leaving only a few rifles and cartridge belts. The next day they were ambushed by Batista's forces. 82 men came ashore only 22 ultimately found their way to the Sierra Maestra.

Cuba and sugar have been tied at the hip since Britain had captured the island in 1762 and opened the island to the slave trade. The first bloody ten year war against Spain began in 1868 when the planter Carlos Manuel de Cepedes freed the 30 slaves on his sugar plantation in eastern Cuba and began the rebellion against the Spanish. A truce was signed 10 years later. The next revolt began in 1895 organized by the writer and poet Jose Marti from New York. (Marti wrote the poem that became the words for the Cuban song Guantanamera.) Marti united a host of Cuban factions including the emigrate community outside of Cuba, spoke eloquently raised funds and is considered a hero of the Cuban revolution. Camaguey, the isolated central part of Cuba was central to the first and second Cuban revolutions. In 1898 the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor. The US blamed the Spanish though it is now thought to have been an accident. The US shortly thereafter invade and quickly achieved victory over the Spanish. In the settlement Americans and Spanish were present, the Cubans nowhere to be seen. The Spanish flag was lowered the American flag was raised a Cuban flag was nowhere to be found. The Cuban’s had fought for 10 years for independence had it within their reach and victory was snatched from them by the Americans.

The U.S. wanted Cuba almost since its founding. In 1821 Thomas Jefferson wrote to Pres. James Monroe that “Cuba looked like the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of states.” And now they owned it.
The Cubans were amazed how quickly the occupying American troops transformed island. Rubble was cleared, the now famous Malecon, an enormous seawall, was built. The capital building was built similar to the White House in Washington only 13 feet taller and costing $20 million.

A constitution was written that included the hated Pratt amendment which allowed for the Americans to keep permanent military bases in Cuba, Guantánamo and others, and allowed the US to intervene in Cuba at any time they chose. The Platt amendment was the requirement the Americans made for their leaving Cuba. After independence a hundred thousand exiles return to the island along with one half million Spaniards.

Lobos’ parents immigrated from Venezuela in 1899 being chased out by a revolutionary, Cipriano Castro, unrelated to Fidel,

In 1914 at age 16 Lobos entered Columbia University and decided to become a sugar expert. Cuba's sugar exports were booming with the outbreak of the First World War. He left Columbia after just one year and enrolled in the sugar engineering Institute at Louisiana State University. Returning to Cuba in 1919 he entered the country in the midst of the speculative sugar boom just like the dot com boom of the 1980s. Cuba’s immense forests or being cut down and burned to expand sugar production. Cuba produced one quarter of the world’s sugar. In the 1920s the sugar price collapsed from $.20-$.03. The government decided to cut sugar production to push up the price supposedly to protect small Cuban sugar mills. It didn't work sugar production increased elsewhere and the price stay low. All of Cuba suffered.

Lobo during this time was working for a sugar trading company.

Gerardo Machado was elected president of Cuba in 1925 promising to end corruption. Four years later he had become a tropical Mussolini literally feeding his opponents to the sharks. In 1933 Batista, a sergeant, took over in a coup d'état. Batista appointed Grau, a left leaning reformer, as president. With US warships nearby the US objected, Grau resigned and a new president was appointed.

In the 1950s plans have been submitted by a US architect to raze much of the old city of Havana turning it into parking lots and skyscrapers connected with bridges to an artificial island in the bay that would contain casinos. The revolution stopped such planning.

Batista ran for president in 1940 and won and pursued aggressive reform. In 1944 Grau won and Batista retired to Daytona Beach Florida. During the this period armed gangs roamed the countryside and many were based in Havana at the University. Castro, at the University at that time, said it was more dangerous for him there than years later in the Sierra Maestra.

Meanwhile Loebel had become fabulously wealthy with his expertise in sugar trading. He simply worked harder than anyone else in the business. Long before it was a common practice, Lobo orchestrated a hostile takeover of an American firm that own sugar mills in Cuba.

In 1941 Lobo dined with the president of Haiti and noticed that the cutlery on the table had been taking from various New York hotels like Astor and the Waldorf.

In 1948 Carlos Prio was elected president. In 1952 Batista returned hoping to be elected president again, however, when it looked like he was going to lose he initiated a coup. Grau and Prios eight years of rule had been eight years of corruption.

Lobo wanted to modernize the sugarcane industry but received great pressure from workers and even ending in the sabotage of some of his new equipment.

And his essay, Compensation, Emerson develop the idea of a spiritual ledger with debits and credit. "If you are wise you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. For every benefit which you receive, a tax is levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base who receives favors and renders none."

In the mid 50s Havana it became known as the Paris of the Caribbean, the Monte Carlo of the Americas, the greatest party town on earth. Never-the-less sugar brought in 10 times the revenue that tourism did.

Castro was the son for wealthy landowner in eastern Cuba. He was disciplined, shrewd and courageous. He was also lucky in the accidental elimination of many rivals. The botched palace attacked by students, the death of the Revolutionary directorates’ leader Jose Antonio Echeverria, then better-known than Castro, and later the death of Frank Pais Castro's rival. There were other rebel groups fighting at the end of 1958 but Castro captured the popular imagination.

Castro went on a victory tour in the United States after the revolution and met with vice Pres. Nixon told Eisenhower that Castro was either a communist or he was a dupe "incredibly naïve."

The book says that the Bay of Pigs the invaders lacked air cover, however, our guide in Cuba said there were multiple US airplane shot down and showed us a piece of one in the Bay of Pigs museum. Who knows the truth?

Today 1/10 of the Cuban population lives outside of Cuba. This is as strange a situation as of 6 million British lived in exile in Calais 80 miles from London and Harold McMillan will still prime minister as he was when Castro came to power.

Cuba has a landmass the size of England and Wales. Few countries have wage three successful African wars in the second half of the last century. Cuba did.

At rallies people chatted "with Fidel, with Fidel, always with Fidel" to the tune of jingle bells.

At the end of 1959 liberal members of the government resigned when Castro made it clear there need not be elections. In 1960 there was a government clampdown on independent media. Eisenhower signed a presidential order for the CIA to recruit exiles return to Cuba and wage war. People began leaving the island. In May Cuba established relations with Moscow. In June US oil companies refused to refine Sophia crude oil on the island and their assets were nationalized. In July of the US Congress ended the sugar quota.


Julio Lobo controlled a the huge percentage of the Cuban sugar trade and was approached by Che Guevara to become general manager of the Cuban sugar industry under the Revolutionary government. Lobo had no interest and instead left the country leaving all his wealth behind him.

[Rhuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A necessary companion volume to T. J. English’s “Havana Nocturne,” this is the story of pre-revolutionary Cuba above ground, through the filter of Julio Lobo. As the richest man in Cuba he gamed its economy in Olympian insulation from politicians, dictators, and Wall Street – but not, ultimately, from Fidel Castro, for whom there could be no rival gods.

From an elite exile family himself, with a most-unSpanish surname and raised in England of all places, John Paul Rathbone has bequeathed an engaging portrait of a man and his era that spanned the rise and fall of the 20th century’s Cuban Republic. Centerpiece to this legacy, both of Lobo and his own roots, Rathbone posits the decayed lese majeste of post-Soviet Cuba. Although aware of the traps of nostalgia and selective memory, he also falls into them.

Nevertheless Rathbone’s journey is an entertaining and informative and moderately ideological romp through the dusty photo albums. There are a few contentious points: Lobo fled an offer of “partnership” in Fidelista Cuba, not arrest. The man who had been king could not accept reduction to advisor of state in his own former castle, so better to quietly retire on the next night flight.

The concept of the “Bill Gates of sugar” musing on a return to democracy is quite ironic. The glaring gap between the Lobo family’s First World opulence and the Third World of the cane fields mocks the entire notion thereof. This gulf was more than economic, it was moral and ethical as well, hence Castro’s success at eviscerating the Lobo empire. But like all fallen emperors Lobo left a mystique that could not be exorcised: hence the selective nostalgia of surviving workers at the old estate waxing over his daughter’s ashes poured upon the grounds.

The hard reality is that Cuba has never been economically self-sufficient since Spanish times, though Lobo and later Castro imagined they had made it so. The Cuban economy of the early 20th century prospered because of its Wall Street links; revolutionary Cuba’s due to Soviet subsidy. With the plug pulled from each it’s no wonder the island began sinking.

The counterpoint of the Lobo-Castro nexus pretty well sums up Cuba and the Revolution. The real class struggle was fought not between exploiters and masses but rival elites, epitomized in these two men. Thus another great irony, as John Paul Rathbone ends his book with a counter-revolutionary paean that sounds like Edmund Burke trashing the French Revolution. Waiting for new royalty and aristocrats, he forgets that after the Jacobins came Napoleon, not some lost paradise: Lobo's own role model, for a reason.

[Ann Greyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly researched and creatively crafted, “The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon” by John Paul Rathbone presents Lobo’s larger-than-life dramatic biography in pre-revolutionary Cuba. Painting a nuanced picture of the haute bourgeoisie, Rathbone interweaves personal stories shared by his mother Margarita Sanchez y Sanchez, who was part of the same upper-class social circle as the daughters of Julio Lobo, which were her friends: Leonor Lobo y Montalvo [my cousin], and Maria Luisa Lobo y Montalvo [my cousin].

Discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, Cuba was known as the ‘Pearl of the Antilles,’ its city of Havana being a hot-spot for celebrities and wealthy tourists. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Julio Lobo y Olavarría (1898–1983) became a sugar tycoon in Cuba during the first half of the 20th century. In his heyday, the flamboyant Lobo dated famous movie actresses Joan Fontaine; Esther Williams, who he filled one of his estate’s swimming pools with perfume to welcome her to Havana; and Bette Davis, whom he made a proposal of marriage. In 1931, he married my cousin Maria de la Esperanza Montalvo y Lasa, (the niece of my famous socialite cousin Catalina de Lasa y del Rio; and great-great-great granddaughter of Tomas Barreto y Pedroso, I Conde de Casa-Barreto, and Maria Josefa Cardenas y Santa Cruz, the grandmother of my cousin Maria de la Mercedes Santa Cruz y Montalvo, Condesa de Merlin), whose ancestry opened aristocratic doors. Including, his sister Helena Lobo y Olavarria married Mario Montoro y Saladrigas, the son of Herminia Saladrigas y Lunar and Rafael Montoro y Valdes, I Marques de Montoro, the grandfather of Rafael Montoro y de la Torre, II Marques de Montoro who married my cousin Albertina O’Farrill y de la Campa.

His decades-long reign, during the period Cuba led the world in sugar production, came to a dramatic end in October 1960. Lobo had a meeting with Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who offered him a position in the Cuban sugar industry under the Castro socialist government similar to that of a general manager.

This last great businessmen of Cuba, Lobo was the quintessential symbol of capitalism and could not exist in the country that Castro and Guevara wanted to create. He left Cuba, which led to the nationalization/confiscation of his private property, estates and assets: fourteen refineries; paintings of Bartolome Esteban Murillo, Diego Rivera and Salvador Dalí; and his large collection of Napoleonica outside of France, with original papers, artwork, priceless relics and books.

In conclusion, Lobo’s vast memorabilia of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican soldier turned Emperor of France is housed in “La Dolce Dimora,” a Florentine Renaissance style mansion turned Museo Napoleonico (Calle San Miguel between Calles Ronda y Mazon) near the Universidad de la Habana.

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book while an interesting read on a very interesting subject falls flat for me,I was skeptical when I saw Jon lee Anderson's praise.Since he wrote a book on a criminal(che.)sources are usual verbatim from Non Cuban Louis Perez,the Cuban Mob "expert" TJ English(Whose source is cirules from the regime.)spy Marifeli,and the semi-good book on Bacardi.However this is not the end-all for me As most Cuban/Cuban American and those who do not accept at face value the apologetic revisionist view are already used to all the books purporting to be about "Cuban History" are used to it. Aside from errors one being on Perez Gamera(it's Perez-Damera.)and again Batista being refused into the Yacht Club(A private club mind you,let's not forget black society clubs were private as any other.),The book is deceiving from the title as it is Lobo,The Author's Cuban half and a quick Cuban history lesson not just the Sugar King.It is also is confusing as the author searches and struggles through the narration should he embrace his British Half? or his Cuban Maternal side? bourgeois is sprinkled here and there while the confrontation between che and Lobo could have been better told. You have him travelling to the island for "research", the mention of blockade(they trade with Canada,Europe, latin america etcera),it tries to please every one and appeals to the mentioned so-called moderate,while it is fitting for a tribute to the Man it could have made for a deeper insight instead of a soul-searching expedition.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

My knowledge of Cuban history has been piecemeal at best. I can utter the things like Castro, Cuban Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs etc. Reading The Sugar King of Havana helped me fill in a few holes in what I hope is my ever shrinking ignorance. Ostensibly this biography was about Julio Lobo, "Cuba's Last Tycoon" and a person I had never heard of, but the author includes a lot of background on the history of Cuba and Havana. This "backstory" is necessary to better comprehend Lobo's world, in which he enjoyed a stellar career as an extremely successful risk taker and entrepreneur. As the author points out, in a very real way Lobo's story is the story of Cuba itself-from its' pre-Revolution heyday to the beginnings of the reign of Castro. Like so many other Cubans Lobo is eventually forced to leave Cuba (and a huge fortune) and he ends his life in impoverished exile-the man who romanced Bette Davis and Joan Fontaine, who cornered the world sugar market and took on all comers, including the good old USA, and won. He had an epic life (even surviving an assassination attempt) and was learned, erudite and honorable, refusing to participate in the rife corruption that existed as the normal way of doing business in Cuba at the time. What a fascinating character.

[Holly Morrow]

The Sugar King of Havana is about Julio Lobo, a Cuban sugar tycoon whose life spanned pre- and post-Castro. The author, John Paul Rathbone’s mother grew up in a wealthy Havana family and she was friends with one of Lobo’s daughters, so the story nicely ties a personal perspective and recollections to a bigger picture of Cuban history. It’s a really interesting up-close picture of Cuba (and particularly the world of Havana high society) in the years before Castro, and then the reaction of the moneyed elites to Castro’s ascent to power. Many wealthy Cubans left the country when Castro came to power, but not all of them – and Juan Lobo was one who stayed. Lobo had hated Batista, and thought he might be able to live with the Castro government, although that ultimately turned out not to be the case and he eventually left for New York.

It’s a good little book – personal history, political history, even some interesting stuff about how sugar markets work (or worked). Could have perhaps used a more ruthless editor.

[Rick Rapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rathbone's book is a fascinating account of Julie Lobo,the richest man in Cuba (before the Revolution.) It gives a detailed history of the rise of sugar (and sugar magnates) in Cuba. It also gives a dramatic insight into the fall of the privileged class in Havana and their bitter feelings (even these decades after) of a lost world and way of life. Rathbone also explores the effect of the Revolution on Havana and its surroundings, both in the late 1950s and all the way up to today. This is a must read for those attempting to understand the Cuba of the past and to reconcile it with the Cuba of today.

[Kyla · Rating 3 out of 5]

While marketed as a biography about Lobo, the narrative is really a story in three parts: Lobo’s life, the author’s familial history, and Cuban history as it set the stage for the other two elements. I learned a lot about a country that still feels closed off in many ways. However, sometimes the narrative threads jumped around too much and I had a hard time staying focused.

[Will Blasingame · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look, I get this is very personal to the author, but for a book ostensibly about the sugar king, he talks a lot about his family history.

Usually, I didn’t mind but then he devoted a solid chunk to a massacre that may or may not have happened in his family’s history that had no relevance to the rest of the book.

[Alion Çaçi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about Julio Lobo - a successful business and sugar trader of the 20th Century in Cuba. It’s not an official biography, but is strongly based on facts and testimonies of the people close to Lobo, including Joan Fontaine.
It’s written on an eye level and the writer smoothly transitions from story to story. I recommend this book to everyone who’s fascinated about Havana and Cuba.

[Sarahmarsh85 . · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting account of Cuba through prism of Lobo, the sugar industry that once dominated its eeconomy, and Rathbone's family, but I couldn't really get a sense of Lobo as a human being, of how he felt about his triumphs and his defeats, particularly his ultimate bankruptcy.

[Joe Jimenez · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Cuban American who emigrated at the young age of 9, I read every book I can that is set in the pre-Castro era. While I enjoyed getting to know Julio Lobo's story, I did not get what I though would come with, the flavors, sounds and character of the Havaneros and Cuba before 1959.

[Michele Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this would be a tell-all book about Julio Lobo, who made, and lost, his fortune during the sugar heyday in Cuba before the reign of Castro. While Lobo is interweaved into the book, the author focuses on the history of Cuba before and after Castro.

[Laura Moniz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting subject matter, dry delivery. Definitely written by an economist, not a creative. Feels the need to infuse stories of his own family that don’t make much sense in the grand scheme of the story of Lobo. But paints an interesting picture of 19th and early 20th venture Havana.

[Lynne Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book told two stories of interest - that of the Sugar King, and that of the author. However, I found the blended approach confusing and the book lacked forward motion. It was a slog to make my way through this one.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great non fiction historical book on Cuba.

[Christopher Hull · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and original topic for research

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of good info on Cuba before and after the revolution.