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Fulgencio Batista dominated Cuban politics for nearly three decades, yet there is no scholarly biography of him. This dissertation aims to fill that void in the historiography. It uses his life to explore a period of Cuban history overshadowed by the dramatic events of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. It attempts to use Batista as an interpretive prism to reveal the political system of the Republican period from 1933–1959, to glimpse at conditions in rural Cuba, to understand organized labor and the contentious relationship between the island nation and the United States. Thus far, a reinterpretation of the period has been held hostage to the political struggle between the Revolutionary government and the Cuban community in exile. As a result, the depiction of the historical Batista has mostly centered on nefarious caricatures put forth by the Cuban government or romanticized notions of a time before the Revolution offered by the exile community. This dissertation focuses on the first 40 years of Batista's life from 1901 to 1940. The Batista of this era is frequently confused with the dictator of the 1950s, even though he operated in a different political environment. He was a military strongman that was required to operate within a civilian institutional framework. The simplistic notion of the presidents of the period as mere puppets needs to be discarded and this work explores those power relationships. In his dealings with Washington, the historical evidence points to a leader seeking greater economic and political independence for Cuba, but grappling with the fact that the island's export-based economy relied heavily on trade and investment with the United States. During the strongman period, there is a reformist streak in the Batista political agenda, including the first nationwide effort to eradicate illiteracy and an alliance with the Communists. These findings highlight the need to discard the old stereotypes of the period and develop a more nuanced and complex historical interpretation, one that views twentieth century Cuba as a whole.