The election of Havana City Historian, Eusebio Leal, as a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AMACAD) responds to the honorary institution’s founding premise: “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”
In the inaugural years following its founding in 1780, the U.S. Academy boasted among its members figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. The institution is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is made up of more than 4,000 members from the United States, and more than 600 foreign honorary members, including Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and British anthropologist Mary Douglas Leakey.
The membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences seeks to represent thinkers and innovators from all over the world, notable for their contributions in very diverse professions and branches of knowledge. Its studies are focused on research and analysis in science and technology, global security and international affairs, social policy, education and the humanities.
Eusebio Leal has been awarded with a long list of recognitions, among which are the national awards for History, Social and Humanistic Sciences, and the Cultural Heritage Prize for his Life’s Work, in addition to ten Honorary Degrees from various universities around the world.
