by Julia Sweig
First published 2009
Julia Sweig examines Cuba's complex position in world affairs since Fidel Castro took control in 1959. She opens by analyzing the power transfer from Fidel to his brother Raul in 2006, then works backward through Cuban history from the Spanish American War forward. Sweig divides her study into four periods: pre-revolutionary Cuba, the years from 1959 through the Soviet collapse, the post-Cold War decade, and the emerging post-Fidel future. She balances Cuba's international relationships with its internal social and political changes. The book explores why Americans remain fixated on this small island nation just ninety miles from Florida, how successive Cuban immigration waves shaped American politics, and why the Cuban exile community wields such influence that presidents consistently defer to their demands. Sweig provides readers with a compact reference covering Cuba's domestic governance, its troubled ties with the United States, and its evolving place in the global community.
Genres: history, international-relations, 20th-century, political-science, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-analysis, political-intrigue
Setting: Cuba, Florida, United States
Period: 1959, 2006
279 pages · Paperback · Oxford University Press