Rich with stunning vistas and natural resources, modern-day Cuba stays in the shadow of its troubled past

Cuba, the largest country in the Caribbean and the westernmost island of the Greater Antilles, is the definition of a tropical paradise: white sand beaches, crystal-clear waters, towering palm trees, rolling sugarcane fields. But Cuba’s history begins long before Christopher Columbus ever sailed over its horizon. In 1492, he spotted what he believed was a peninsula of Asia, and later…