In Encumbered Cuba, Susan Fernandez shows how, in the competition for capital, Spain lost Cuba before a shot was even fired in the 1895 war for independence. She argues that economic forces after the Ten Years' War both ensured American intervention and reduced Cuban opposition to the U.S. political direction of the Cuban economy. No comparable study, in either English or Spanish, addresses the financial links among these three countries and the developmental implications of those relations for Cuba in its late-colonial economic and financial history. Fernandez shows that the unsupportive fiscal and monetary policies of Spain limited diversification, industrialization, and food security while deepening Cuban-U.S. ties. Extensive primary research on merchant capital and on Cuban banks, particularly the Banco Espanol de la Isla de Cuba and the Banco Hispano-Colonial, is the basis for Fernandez's argument. Her provocative conclusion is that Cuba's rejection of colonial rule in 1895 was primarily a revolt against Spanish economic direction that cut across classes.