Manuel Moreno Fraginals made an absolutely unique intellectual contribution to the study of Cuba, the Caribbean region, and the history of sugar.

Only a scholar who had successfully grasped the panorama of the Cuban sugar enterprise over a period at least two centuries long could have launched his research. Even more remarkable, however, was this understanding of how that enterprise fitted within the world picture.

What he has explained to us no one else had ever explained so well. I suspect that no one else will ever explain it better.

Sidney W. Mintz
Wm. L. Straus Jr. Professor Emeritus
Department of Anthropology
Johns Hopkins University