Reading material on Cuba

The triumph of the Cuban Revolution on 1 January 1959 immediately called attention to a country hardly thought about in the United States as anything more than a place of tropical promiscuity, frequented by tourists in pursuit of illicit pleasures and risqué amusements—a setting for honeymoons, a playground for vacations, a brothel, a casino, a cabaret, a good liberty port. With a few notable exceptions, it was impossible to argue that a “scholarship” on Cuba existed in the United States. Everything changed after 1 January 1959, and since then, a formidable body of scholarship has assumed prodigious proportions. Mainly, this literature has focused on politics, policies, and the performance of the Cuban Revolution, spanning such diverse subjects as economic development, government, foreign policy, leadership, race relations, gender, and the arts. Within these general categories, subthemes have developed. For example, no other single facet of Cuban international relations has received as much attention in both countries as Cuban relations with the United States. Similarly, the study of leadership in the Cuban Revolution has focused almost entirely on the biography of Fidel Castro. This is also a literature singularly characterized by a point of view. On the subject of the Cuban Revolution, neutrality is rare. Almost everyone who writes on Cuba has a “position” on the revolution. This is not intended to invite suspicion about the quality of the scholarship. Rather, it is meant to call attention to one of the salient, if not always apparent, qualities intrinsic to the scholarship on the Cuban Revolution. This guide seeks to provide a context for this literature. The sources cited here are informative, are representative of the field, and seek to offer a balanced perspective.

General Narratives

The titles in this section represent the scope of the scholarship on the Cuban Revolution, with a focus principally on the 1950s and later. They provide broad, synthetic, narrative perspectives on the revolution through its principal phases of development and address the complex interplay of the national with the international, politics, economy, and culture, developed within an approximate chronological order, from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including history, sociology, and political science. Pérez-Stable 1999, Kapcia 2008, and Chomsky 2010 offer a historically nuanced perspective from which to assess the course of the revolution. Nelson 1972 is similar in approach but with greater attention to the sociology of the revolution. The role of the Soviet Union is a salient aspect of these studies. Karol 1970 addresses specifically the circumstances that produced the Cuban alliance with the Soviet Union, while del Águila 1984 examines the consequences. The repercussions of the post-Soviet years are the subject of Bengelsdorf 1994 and Eckstein 2003. These overviews provide a broad context from which to take measure of the achievements and shortcomings of the revolution.

Bengelsdorf, Carollee. The Problem of Democracy in Cuba: Between Vision and Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
A thoughtful examination of the role of ideology in shaping the principal policy approaches to economic development and political participation. The study offers a compelling critique of the inability of Cuban structures to break free from the grip of antidemocratic impulses of Marxist–Leninist precepts. It is particularly useful as a perspective on Cuba during the early years of the post-Soviet period.

Chomsky, Aviva. A History of the Cuban Revolution. New York: Wiley Blackwell, 2010.
A useful fifty-year overview of the Cuban Revolution, set within a larger international context. Emphasis is given to political economy as the principal explanatory approach to the analysis of the revolution.

del Águila, Juan M. Cuba: Dilemmas of a Revolution. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1984.
A generally critical assessment of the politics, policies, and programs of the Cuban revolutionary government. Attention is given principally to Cuban foreign policy, economic development, social programs, and the development of the new institutional structures of the Cuban government.

Eckstein, Susan E. Back from the Future: Cuba under Castro. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2003.
An examination of the scope of the revolution, principally through the end of the 20th century. Adopting a thematic approach, the book examines key facets of the process of the revolution, including rectification, internationalism, and the years of the Special Period in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kapcia, Antoni. Cuba in Revolution: A History since the Fifties. London: Reaktion, 2008.
A highly readable historical survey of fifty years of the Cuban Revolution. The principal thematic highlights include the role of ideology; Fidel Castro; Cuban relations with the United States, the Soviet Union, and China; and the crisis of the post-Soviet years.

Karol, K. S. Guerrillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution. Translated by Arnold Pomerans. New York: Hill & Wang, 1970.
A critical study of the first ten years of the Cuban Revolution, paying particular attention to the early failure of Cuban development strategies, and specifically agriculture, industry, and manufacturing, within the context of expanding Cuba-Soviet relations.

Nelson, Lowry. Cuba: The Measure of a Revolution. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972.
An examination of the social conditions in prerevolutionary Cuba as the setting for the transition to socialism. The principal focus is on the impact of the revolution on a number of key aspects of Cuban life, including agriculture, economic diversification, labor, education, family, press, social class, and social services.

Pérez-Stable, Marifeli. The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
A critical overview of developments in revolutionary Cuba between 1959 and 1999. Attention is given to the role of nationalism, the vicissitudes of economic development strategies, political institutions, and Cuban relations with the Soviet Union.

Sweig, Julia. Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Presented in a question-and-answer format, this overview of early-21st-century Cuba addresses a wide variety of themes, including history, politics and government, the arts, US-Cuba relations, and Fidel Castro.

Bibliographies

The expansion of the literature on the Cuban Revolution since the late 1950s has assumed vast proportions and has, in turn, summoned into existence an equally vast body of bibliographical compilations and research guides. The publication of bibliographical aids has become an ongoing enterprise, all to the benefit of research on Cuba, and indeed serves as one of the principal means by which to access this vast literature. The most-useful guides for the general reader include titles in the social sciences and humanities, such as Cuban Studies and Chilcote 1986. Bibliographies are not without limitations, one of which is lapsing into dated materials. At the same time, however, specialized bibliographies, such as Anderson 1974, Fort 1969, Santos Quílez 1980, and Pérez 1982, offer an excellent way to gain entree into the literature. Suchlicki 1968 is a guide to the important documentary sources for the study of the revolution; it transcends temporal limitations and indeed provides an invaluable reading/research tool. Valdés and Lieuwen 1971 outlines research approaches to the revolution.

Anderson, Teresa, ed. Cuban Agrarian Economy: Bibliography. Madison: Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin, 1974.
A comprehensive compilation of titles, both from within Cuba and from outside, addressing the changing agricultural structures in Cuba, including changing land tenure forms, the agrarian reform of 1959, and the development of cooperatives.

Chilcote, Ronald H., ed. Cuba, 1953–1978: A Bibliographical Guide to the Literature. 2 vols. White Plains, NY: Kraus International, 1986.
Perhaps the most exhaustive and certainly the most complete bibliographical listing for the years within its scope. The bibliography is organized around specific subjects and includes society, culture, social services, politics, economics, international affairs, the periodization of the revolution, and revolutionary leadership, among others.

Cuban Studies

Inaugurated in 1970, Cuban Studies offers a “state-of-the-art” source for research in all the social sciences and humanities as well as book reviews, and it serves as the principal bibliographical resource for scholarship on Cuba. Each issue contains a bibliographical listing of newly published titles, including articles, monographs, and books, principally from Cuba and the United States.

Fort, Gilbert V., ed. The Cuban Revolution of Fidel Castro Viewed from Abroad. Lawrence: University of Kansas Libraries, 1969.
Perhaps the most comprehensive compilation of titles published outside Cuba during the first ten years of the revolution, including works of scholarship and important journalistic essays.

Parker, Dick. La revolución cubana. Caracas, Venezuela: Biblioteca Nacional, 1995.
A listing of published materials—most from Latin America—dealing with a wide variety of themes. Offers a guide to bibliographies as well as a listing of the speeches and interviews of Fidel Castro; a guide to monographs and pamphlets on various themes of politics, economics, and international relations. The guide is particularly strong for materials published during the 1980s.

Pérez, Louis A., Jr., ed. Historiography in the Revolution: A Bibliography of Cuban Scholarship, 1959–1979. New York: Garland, 1982.
A compilation of the historical works published in Cuba during the first twenty years of the revolution. The guide is organized in two formats: chronological, spanning the pre-Columbian period to 1952, and thematic, including labor, women, communism, slavery, and foreign relations, among others.

Santos Quílez, Aleida de la, ed. El campesinado cubano: Breve bibliografía. Havana, Cuba: Editora Política, 1980.
A guide to the literature on peasants and rural society, published principally in Cuba.

Suchlicki, Jaime, ed. The Cuban Revolution: A Documentary Bibliography, 1952–1968. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1968.
A bibliography listing some of the most important primary sources for the study of the early years of the Cuban Revolution, including speeches, manifestos, proclamations, and published interviews, drawn principally from newspapers and periodicals. The bibliography is organized in chronological order, beginning with 1952 and ending in 1968.

Valdés, Nelson P., and Edwin Lieuwen, eds. The Cuban Revolution: A Research Guide (1959–1969). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1971.
A comprehensive guide to research materials for the study of the Cuban Revolution, and for the years of its temporal scope; an indispensable source. It identifies a wide variety of sources, spanning newspapers, periodicals, directories, guides, and almanacs, and features historical works by scholars and observers, addressing politics, international relations, economy, education, society, religion, and culture.

Surveys

Survey histories of Cuba offer an important contextual framework within which to approach an understanding of the complexities of the revolution. The course of the revolution was very much shaped by the events of the 1950s, to be sure. But the revolution also possessed a historicity with antecedents deep in the Cuban past. It was of and very much within the historical experience of the Cuban people, experiences that acted to shape the circumstances in which the revolution assumed form. Factors of colonialism, sugar and slavery, trade and commerce, and imperialism, among many others, provide the critical context necessary to understand the antecedents to the events that transpired after 1 January 1959, and these factors are the focus of Gott 2004 and Pérez 2010. A comprehensive, detailed, and all-inclusive historical perspective can be found in Thomas 1971.

Gott, Richard. Cuba: A New History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
A survey of Cuban history from the colonial period into the early 21st century. The history emphasizes the revolutionary period, spanning the insurrectionary war during the 1950s through the post-Soviet years of the Special Period.

Pérez, Louis A., Jr. Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
An overview of Cuban history, spanning pre-Columbian times through the first decade of the 21st century. Emphasis is given to social, economic, and political developments, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Thomas, Hugh. Cuba, or, the Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Perhaps the most detailed survey history of Cuba, this encyclopedic volume is an obligatory reference work for virtually all facets of Cuban history. Focused principally from 1762 through the year in which it was published, it is well written and thoroughly researched, with a decided emphasis on political history. The highly readable text includes useful appendixes, statistics, photographs, and a very usable index.

Edited Collections and Anthologies

The production of edited collections and anthologies has developed fully into a subgenre of the scholarly literature on the Cuban Revolution. Anthologies typically serve to bring together in one volume multiple disciplinary perspectives and often provide a venue for new scholarship. No less important, edited works have also served as the basis for collaborative projects, providing the opportunity to publish works in English translation by Cuban scholars. Anthologies conform to several distinct typologies. Halebsky and Kirk 1985 serves a commemorative function, a work that aims to take stock of developments over a specified period of time. Given that editors can often “command” contributions, anthologies are also well-adapted formats to examine specific thematic concerns. The impact of the post-Soviet Special Period has developed into an important subject of scholarly interest that is addressed in Centeno and Font 1997, Purcell and Rothkopf 2000, Azicri and Deal 2004, and Hoffmann and Whitehead 2007. Anthologies also provide a format to addresses specialized topics from multiple aspects by specialists, bringing the prevailing collective wisdom to bear on one theme. Pérez-López and Alvarez 2005 addresses the Cuban sugar industry; Silverman 1971 examines the debate on moral incentives. The state of Cuban scholarship is the subject of Fernández 1992. In a more general way, anthologies often serve to provide multidisciplinary introductory overviews of conditions in Cuba, addressing a wide range of topics. See Mesa-Lago 1971 and Bonachea and Valdés 1972 for this approach.

Azicri, Max, and Elsie Deal, eds. Cuban Socialism in a New Century: Adversity, Survival, and Renewal. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.
Examines vital facets of the Cuban response to the challenges of the post-Soviet years in the context of globalization. These essays address issues of migration, the expanded role of religion in Cuban public life, women and changing gender roles occasioned by circumstances of the post-Soviet years, the new role of the armed forces, foreign policy, demography, social and cultural changes, and the changing role of the Cuban Communist Party.

Bonachea, Rolando E., and Nelson P. Valdés, eds. Cuba in Revolution. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1972.
A collection of more than twenty essays written by North Americans and Cubans in Cuba and by Cubans abroad, dealing with a number of wide-ranging themes, including the insurrectionary war (1953–1958), bureaucracy, political mobilization, economic policy, sugar production, labor, health, education, and culture.

Centeno, Miguel Angel, and Mauricio Font, eds. Toward a New Cuba? Legacies of a Revolution. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997.
The essays in this volume examine the early years of the Special Period, as Cuba adapted to the exigencies of the post-Soviet crisis. The materials range over a wide spectrum of subjects, including race relations, economic development, transition to a market economy, Cuba-US relations, black market transactions, and the role of the Cuban community abroad.

Fernández, Damián J., ed. Cuban Studies since the Revolution. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992.
A collection of essays examining the development of the field of scholarship in Cuban studies, principally in the United States. The book provides an introduction to the “state of the scholarship” at the time of its publication in multiple disciplines, including history, economics, political science, international relations, the humanities, and migration studies.

Halebsky, Sandor, and John M. Kirk, eds. Cuba: Twenty-Five Years of Revolution, 1959–1984. New York: Praeger, 1985.
A quarter-century retrospect, including essays on education, medicine, nutrition, women, religion, popular culture, cinema, literature, economic planning, labor, foreign policy, US-Cuban relations, and historiography.

Hoffmann, Bert, and Laurence Whitehead, eds. Debating Cuban Exceptionalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
A collection of essays from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including historical, political, sociological, and economic, from within Cuba and outside, examining the circumstances of the Cuban condition in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The themes revolve around inquiry into the factors that have precluded the development of a democratic market economy that emerged in the former Soviet bloc countries.

Mesa-Lago, Carmelo, ed. Revolutionary Change in Cuba. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971.
Eighteen essays arranged in three parts: polity, economy, and society. The themes examined in the first part include the early consolidation of political power, the role of the Communist Party, foreign relations, and Stalinism in revolutionary politics. The section on the economy addresses central planning, labor, international economic relations, and development policies. The third section, on society, addresses social structures, education, religion, art, theater, cinema, and literature.

Pérez-López, Jorge, and José Alvarez, eds. Reinventing the Cuban Sugar Agroindustry. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005.
A wide-ranging set of essays examining critical facets of Cuban strategies of sugar production in a changing international environment, including such issues as production cost patterns, trade and commerce, technology, free trade, and the development of biofuels. Purcell, Susan Kaufman, and David J. Rothkopf, eds. Cuba: The Contours of Change. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000.
A collection of essays examining various aspects of Cuba after almost a decade of the Special Period, including transition to a market economy, the US embargo, and political changes occasioned by the crisis of the post-Soviet years.

Silverman, Bertram, ed. Man and Socialism in Cuba: The Great Debate. New York: Atheneum, 1971.
The “great debate” involves the deliberations on the efficacy of moral incentives over material rewards. An informative collection of essays examining an important period during the early years of the Cuban Revolution, bringing together a variety of perspectives on the subject of moral incentives, including those in leadership positions in Cuba, economists, and scholars.

Primary Sources

The Cuban Revolution has engendered the publication of a vast literature of primary sources. Much of what qualifies as “documents” originates from government sources, principally the United States. Other types of materials include published correspondence and speeches as well as statistical abstracts. The reader is encouraged to examine other sections of this article to identify other types of primary sources, including memoirs, oral histories, and testimonios. Primary sources often come bearing perspectives and point of view, of course, and the titles in this section are distinctly marked by their origins. The perspectives of Fidel Castro during a critical, formative period of his imprisonment can be found in the private and personal letters published in Castro 2007. Equally important are the speeches, articles, and manifestos that Castro prepared between the late 1940s and the late 1950s that are included in Castro 1972. A wider array of perspectives from Cuba are found in García Luis 2008. Equally valuable is that portion of periodically declassified US records pertaining to specific periods of time in Cuba-US relations. The two volumes prepared by the US Department of State (US Department of State 1991a US Department of State 1991b) are vital sources for these years. Perhaps the two signal events in the early 1960s were the abortive US invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs/Playa Girón in April 1961 and the missile crisis of October 1962. While it cannot be assumed that all materials have been declassified, McAuliffe 1992 and Kornbluh 1998 offer a useful point of departure.

Castro, Fidel. Revolutionary Struggle, 1947–1958. Edited by Rolando E. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdés. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1972.
An indispensable collection of the early published speeches and writings of Fidel Castro, spanning his years at the University of Havana to the eve of the triumph of the armed struggle against the government of Fulgencio Batista. The editors provide an excellent introductory essay as an accompanying narrative for the documents.

Castro, Fidel. The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro. Edited by Ann Louise Bardach and Luis Conte Agüero. New York: Nation, 2007.
A collection of twenty-one letters written by Castro during the nearly two years when he was imprisoned between 1953 and 1955. The correspondence provides insight into the private ruminations and personal reflections by Castro during an important, formative period.

García Luis, Julio, ed. Cuban Revolution Reader: A Documentary History of Fidel Castro's Revolution. New York: Ocean, 2008.
A collection of many of the most important materials bearing on the course of the revolution from 1959 through the early 21st century. The materials consist principally of speeches by members of the leadership, including Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos, Osvaldo Dorticós, Raúl Castro, and Carlos Lage, the texts of the most-important laws, and government communiqués; articles from the newspaper Granma are also reproduced.

Kornbluh, Peter, ed. Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba. New York: New Press, 1998.
The publication of CIA inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick's internal report on the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, declassified in 1995. A probing examination of the circumstances leading to the abysmal failure of the US-sponsored invasion, concluding that the CIA was guilty of misleading the president.

McAuliffe, Mary S., ed. CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Washington, DC: History Staff, Central Intelligence Agency, 1992.
A compilation of more than one hundred documents of varying lengths, largely in the form of maps, memoranda, and cable communications. The vast majority of the material deals with the period between 16 October and 28 October 1962 and is related principally to the discovery and assessment of the presence of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile sites in Cuba and to the analysis of the political context and international conditions of the crisis.

Schroeder, Susan. Cuba: A Handbook of Historical Statistics. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
A splendid compilation of a mass of statistical data, spanning the 15th century through the 1970s. It contains information on population, production, labor, education, banking and finance, and trade and commerce, among other subjects.

US Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States: Cuba, 1958–1960. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1991a.
The volume of the Foreign Relations series provides an invaluable collection of primary sources bearing on US-Cuba relations during the final months of the Batista government until the suspension of diplomatic relations in 1961. Materials consist of cable dispatches from the US embassy in Havana, internal Department of State and Department of Defense memoranda, minutes of National Security Council meetings, and presidential papers.

US Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States: Cuba, 1961–1962. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1991b.
The volume deals principally with the years 1961 and 1962 and is particularly important for documents, memoranda, and dispatches bearing on the Bay of Pigs and US covert operations in Cuba.

Fidel Castro

Biographies of Fidel Castro have developed into a veritable cottage industry in the United States and indeed have fully assumed the form of a literary subgenre. Few heads of state have been the subject of more biographies during their lifetime than Fidel Castro—something all the more remarkable considering that the country over which he presides is hardly more than the size of Florida, with a population of eleven million people. Biographies have been written by scholars, journalists, and at least one psychiatrist. Biographical accounts of Castro take three principal forms, all of which are represented in this section. Unabashedly hostile biographies are represented by Geyer 1991 and Quirk 1993. Balanced or sympathetic accounts are found in Matthews 1969, Bourne 1986, and Szulc 1986. Falling somewhere in between is Dubois 1959, which is the first published biography of Castro in English, appearing within months after the triumph of the revolution. A prominent facet of the biographical literature on Castro has also been the publication of book-length interviews, a format that has served as an important source of first-person information and often provides remarkable personal and political portraits of the Cuban leader. This format allows unmediated access to Castro's accounts of his own life. The most comprehensive of this genre is Castro 2007. During a phase of political transition during the late 1980s, the issue of the compatibility of religion and revolution developed into a topic of considerable interest. Betto 1987 provides insight into Castro's attitudes toward religion. Lockwood 1967 similarly provides an account of Castro engaged in lengthy conversation and gives fascinating insights into the Cuban leader's life.

Betto, Frei. Fidel and Religion: Castro Talks on Revolution and Religion with Frei Betto. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.
On the basis of twenty-three hours of conversation, the interview addresses matters related principally to the compatibility between Christianity and Marxism. Provoking considerable controversy at the time of its original publication, it served as a gesture to incorporate “believers” (creyentes) into the Cuban revolutionary processes.

Bourne, Peter G. Fidel: A Biography of Fidel Castro. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1986.
A generally sympathetic biography of Fidel Castro, written by a psychiatrist. At times perhaps too “psychological,” the biography nevertheless offers interesting insights into Castro's childhood and education, the university years, the armed struggle, and ultimate conversion to Marxism–Leninism.

Castro, Fidel. My Life. Edited by Ignacio Ramonet. Translated by Andrew Hurley. London: Penguin, 2007.
That Fidel Castro appears as the author of My Life is misleading because this is not an autobiography in a conventional sense. Rather, it is the edited transcript based on one hundred hours of interviews conducted from 2003 to 2005. Castro reminisces about his childhood, political formation, the guerrilla war, the early years of the revolution, and relations with the United States.

Dubois, Jules. Fidel Castro: Rebel, Liberator or Dictator? Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959.
The Dubois book was the first Castro biography in English. Chicago Tribune correspondent Dubois obtained early access to Castro during the 1950s, from which he based this political biography, examining the years between the late 1940s and the triumph of the revolution in 1959.

Geyer, Georgie Ann. Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991.
One of the more virulently hostile biographies of Castro, purporting to answer the question of who Castro “really is.” It is filled with psychological ruminations very much derived from unattributed sources, gossip, and rumors organized around speculation and driven by innuendo and inference.

Lockwood, Lee. Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel. New York: Knopf, 1967.
One of the first published interviews of Castro, on the basis of seven days of conversation in August 1965. The subjects of the interviews range from matters having to do with political prisoners, plans for economic development, Cuba-US relations, and autobiographical musings. Richly illustrated with stunning photographs.

Matthews, Herbert L. Fidel Castro. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969.
New York Times correspondent Matthews prepared a generally sympathetic biography of Castro's public life, largely spanning the years from the Moncada attack in 1953 through the end of the 1960s. More than a biography, it develops fully as a “life and times” account of Cuba during these years.

Quirk, Robert E. Fidel Castro. New York: Norton, 1993.
A generally hostile biography of Castro, giving attention to the process of childhood personality development and its influence on Castro's later behavior and conduct. The volume is skewed heavily toward the years before 1970, with relatively scant attention given to the later years.

Szulc, Tad. Fidel: A Critical Portrait. New York: William Morrow, 1986.
A comprehensive and perhaps the most balanced biography of Castro. Szulc was provided with privileged access to the Cuban leader over the course of one year, as well as receiving access to aides and collaborators of Castro. Divided into four parts—1926–1952, 1952–1958, 1959–1963, and 1963–1986—the biography provides a thorough study of Fidel.

Insurrectionary War, 1953–1959

On 10 March 1952, on the eve of national elections, General Fulgencio Batista seized power in a military coup and overthrew the constitutional government of Carlos Prío Socarrás. Within eighteen months, Fidel Castro had responded to the Batista coup with an organized assault against the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba, the second-largest military installation on the island. While the assault was a military failure, it was a political success, and it served to catapult Castro into a position of political prominence. Of the several revolutionary groups that emerged to oppose Batista, the Movimiento Revolucionario 26–7 (MR 26–7), led by Fidel Castro, gained early ascendancy. In the years that followed, the insurrection expanded across the island. Bonachea and San Martín 1974 offers a broader overview of the full extent of the insurgency as it developed in the 1950s. Key documents and first-person vignettes of the insurrection are preserved in Franqui 1980. Resistance increased as did repression throughout the 1950s. Running gun battles in the cities, ambushes in the countryside, strikes and demonstrations, and abductions and assassinations became only the more visible expressions of a nation at war with itself. In the mountains of eastern Cuba, a full-scale guerrilla war was expanding and gaining support; in the cities of the west, the urban underground was engaged in a sustained campaign of violence and sabotage. The MR 26–7 functioned at two levels: in the mountains (sierra) and in the cities (llano). Guevara 1968 and Castro 2010 focus entirely on the sierra campaign. Facets of the urban resistance in Havana are documented in a scholarly treatment in Sweig 2002 and a first-person account in Hart 2004. Between Havana in the west and the mountains of the east, the armed struggle took hold in provincial towns and cities, detailed and documented in García-Pérez 1998. The final desperate days of December 1958, the climax of two years of armed conflict, are documented in a day-by-day chronicle in Dorschner and Fabricio 1980.

Bonachea, Ramón L., and Marta San Martín. The Cuban Insurrection, 1952–1959. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1974.
A thorough examination of the multifaceted perspectives of the armed struggle between the military coup of Fulgencio Batista in March 1952 and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959. Attention is given principally to the Directorio Revolucionario and the MR 26–7.

Castro, Fidel. La victoria estratégica. Havana, Cuba: Oficina de Publicaciones del Consejo de Estado, 2010.
These published memoirs of Fidel Castro, prepared during his retirement recount in detail the final year of the guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra. Richly illustrated with maps and battle diagrams, photographs, and the reproduction of important documents, the volume is indispensable for the study of the final phase of the guerrilla war.

Dorschner, John, and Roberto Fabricio. The Winds of December. East Rutherford, NJ: Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, 1980.
Based on published materials, US State Department documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and more than two hundred interviews with eyewitnesses and participants both from the Cuban government and its opponents, the book makes for an invaluable chronicle of the political, diplomatic, and military aspects of the final month of the Batista government.

Figueras Pérez, Luis, and Marisel Salles Fonseca. La lucha clandestina en Guantánamo, 1952–1958: Apuntes e interpretaciones. Colección Managüí. Guantánamo, Cuba: Editorial El Mar y La Montaña, 2011.
A contribution to the expanding historical literature—and historiographical revision—on the role of the urban resistance as a factor vital to the success of the armed struggle during the 1950s against the government of Fulgencio Batista.

Franqui, Carlos. Diary of the Cuban Revolution. Translated by Georgette Felix, Elaine Kerrigan, Phyllis Freeman, and Hardie St. Martin. New York: Viking, 1980.
A collection of interviews, documents, memoirs, and correspondence chronicling the years of insurgency between 1953 and 1958. The book provides in-depth treatment of the multiple facets of armed resistance, including preparations for the attack on Moncada, the Granma landing, labor strikes, and the guerrilla war.

García-Pérez, Gladys Marel. Insurrection and Revolution: Armed Struggle in Cuba, 1952–1959. Translated by Juan Ortega. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998.
An examination of the regional basis of support for the MR 26–7, with particular attention to Matanzas Province. Based on research in archival records and the provincial press, and extensive oral histories of the participants in the insurrection, the book privileges the significance of local issues as the catalyst for support of, and participation in, the expanding national revolutionary movement.

Guevara, Ernesto Che. Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War. Translated by Victoria Ortiz. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968.
The English translation of Guevara's field diary during the guerrilla campaign between 1956 and 1958. The memoir is an important source for the study of the major battles and key aspects of the insurgency, providing insight into the organization, leadership, and strategy of the rebel army during the guerrilla campaign.

Hart, Armando. Aldabonazo: Inside the Cuban Revolutionary Underground, 1952–1958. New York: Pathfinder, 2004.
A first-person account of the MR 26–7 urban resistance to the Batista government, dealing variously with the University of Havana, the attack on the Moncada barracks, and the armed struggle both in the Sierra Maestra and in the principal cities of the island. Includes the publication of important documents and photographs.

Sweig, Julia E. Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
A carefully researched narrative that will stand as one of the touchstone accounts of the insurrectionary war. Using a wide range of archival records and manuscript sources, including important and previously unused Cuban materials, the book details the complex and often-contradictory relations between the organizers of the urban resistance in the cities and the leadership of the guerrilla columns in the mountains.

Memoirs

That the process of the Cuban Revolution after 1959 passed through successive phases, each with distinctive characteristics and different ideological orientations, served to create the conditions for successive disaffection among many of the men and women who participated in, or were party to, the dramatic changes that occurred on the island. The titles in this section are written entirely by Cubans who were in one way or another “insiders” and who subsequently went into exile and published their memoirs. In the aggregate, these memoirs serve as an important source of information on some of the critical periods of the revolution. Holders of high government positions who are represented include works by a former provisional president (Urrutia Lleó 1964) and a former minister of the treasury (López-Fresquet 1966). Memoirs detailing activities in the anti-Batista struggle are represented by Casuso 1961 and Llerena 1978. Llovio-Menéndez 1988 provides an account of someone who served briefly in various positions of government. The account of the ultimate “insider” is Batista 1962, which provides not only a view from the inside but also from the top. The author of Sutherland 1969 traveled about the island and engaged Cubans both in casual and political conversation in providing a chronicle of “moments” during a transition phase of the revolution.

Batista, Fulgencio. Cuba Betrayed. New York: Vantage, 1962.
While not exactly a memoir—more akin to an apologia—Batista gives a useful account for the study of Cuba during the final years of his government. The book is particularly valuable for the perspective it provides on the government's efforts to confront mounting revolutionary resistance. It includes a large number of extracts from personal correspondence and official military and political communiqués.

Casuso, Teresa. Cuba and Castro. Translated by Elmer Grossberg. New York: Random House, 1961.
Written by an adviser to Fidel Castro and an early supporter of the revolutionary movement, the memoir is particularly significant as a source for the late 1950s and the early months of the revolution. The author served as the Cuban ambassador to the UN before resigning and seeking political exile in the United States in 1960.

Llerena, Mario. The Unsuspected Revolution: The Birth and Rise of Castroism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978.
The author joined the Movimiento Revolucionario 26–7 (MR 26–7) in the mid-1950s and was especially active in propaganda and fund raising in the United States during the early phase of the insurrection in Cuba. It is especially useful for its insight into the activities of Cubans outside the island in support of the anti-Batista movement.

Llovio-Menéndez, José Luis. Insider: My Hidden Life as a Revolutionary in Cuba. Translated by Edith Grossman. New York: Bantam, 1988.
Spanning the years between the late 1950s and early 1980s, the memoir chronicles the politics and policies of change in key ministries. The author served as director of capital investments of the Ministry of Sugar, as senior adviser in the Ministry of Finance, and adviser in the Ministry of Culture, and he witnessed and participated in the discussions bearing on key economic planning decisions.

López-Fresquet, Rufo. My 14 Months with Castro. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing, 1966.
A highly informative account of the new revolutionary government during the early months of 1959, as told by the former minister of the treasury. Of particular value are the insights into the early economic development strategies contemplated by the new government, particularly as it involved relations with US corporations and the US government.

Sutherland, Elizabeth. The Youngest Revolution: A Personal Report on Cuba. New York: Dial, 1969.
This thoughtful first-person account of travels through Cuba—ten years after the triumph of the revolution—provides insightful observations about the character of daily life, a chronicle of a people still in the thrall of the promise of the revolution. It is particularly useful for its inclusion of passages of conversations with “ordinary” Cubans across the island.

Urrutia Lleó, Manuel. Fidel Castro and Company: Communist Tyranny in Cuba. New York: Praeger, 1964.
An account of the tumultuous early months after the triumph of the revolution. The author served as provisional president between January and July 1959, whereupon he resigned in protest at the expanding Communist presence in government. The preoccupation with communism notwithstanding, the memoir provides an informative perspective on the building tensions inside the government, and particularly the expanding role of Fidel Castro in matters of state.

Oral History and Testimonios

If published memoirs offer a perspective from “the top down,” oral histories and testimonios provide a view from “the bottom up.” One of the most important perspectives on the Cuban Revolution concerns the ways that radical change affected the daily lives of many hundreds of thousands of Cubans. Students and scholars are especially fortunate to have Lewis, et al. 1977a; Lewis, et al. 1977b; and Lewis, et al. 1978, with oral histories and testimonios of men and women, of black and white, of all ages, from all walks of life, and before and after the revolution. First-person accounts chronicle the experiences of daily life during the years before and after the changes wrought by the revolution. Such is the value of Castillo Bueno 2000. No less important as a way to understanding the human drama of the revolution are the oral histories and testimonios of the men and women who chose to emigrate from the island after 1959. These accounts are available in Fernández 1987 and O’Neill Herrera 2001.

Castillo Bueno, María de los Reyes. Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Daisy Rubiera Castillo. Translated by Anne McLean. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.
The English translation of a testimonio originally published in Cuba. As a source for the study of daily life in Cuba recounted over the span of decades, it is unrivaled. Reyita reminisces about family, work, marriage, religion, racial discrimination, and the impact of the Cuban Revolution.

Fernández, José R. Los abuelos: Historia oral cubana. Miami, FL: Ediciones Universal, 1987.
A collection of oral histories taken of a dozen men and women in exile in Miami and organized into three parts: life in Cuba, which includes reminiscences of childhood and schooling, family life, holidays, hurricanes, and religion; history, involving memories of important historical events, including the war for independence, the revolutions of 1906, 1912, and 1917, and the Machado years; and immigration to the United States.

Lewis, Oscar, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon. Four Men: Living the Revolution; An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977a.
The oral history of four men representing diverse ages, histories, occupations, class backgrounds, races, and political persuasions. The reminiscences provide a compelling account of life in pre- and post-revolutionary Cuba, offering insight into aspect of daily life, including male-female relations, religion, politics, race and class antagonism, family life, work, and recreation.

Lewis, Oscar, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon. Four Women: Living the Revolution; An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977b.
A collection of lengthy oral histories of four different women, including an educated married woman and member of the Communist Party; a single woman living with her parents, formerly active in counterrevolutionary activities; a former prostitute; and a middle-aged housewife, formerly a domestic servant. The life histories provide a highly informative perspective on the condition of women before and after the revolution.

Lewis, Oscar, Ruth M. Lewis, and Susan M. Rigdon. Neighbors: Living the Revolution; An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.
The third volume of an impressive oral history project of the 1970s, bringing together the memoirs of men and women, old and young, white and black—all residents of the apartment building located in the 400 block of Crustal Street in Havana. A richly textured collective memoir of the vagaries of daily life in Cuba in the years immediately before and after the triumph of the revolution.

O’Neill Herrera, Andrea. Remembering Cuba: Legacy of Diaspora. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
A collection of one hundred interviews with Cubans in exile. The book contains oral histories, correspondence, essays, photographs, and journal entries, principally addressing the meaning of exile and emigration.

Cuba–US Relations

It is all but impossible to understand the Cuban Revolution outside the larger context of the relationship between Cuba and the United States. Relations between Cuba and the United States began to deteriorate almost immediately upon the triumph of the revolution in January 1959, becoming increasingly strained and culminating in January 1961 in a rupture of diplomatic relations. The Cuban challenge to the premise and propriety of US power in Cuba and the US response to that challenge serve as the principal sources of conflict between both countries. A vast literature has developed, examining virtually every aspect of Cuba-US relations since 1959. The principal thematic elements of the literature correspond to the years 1959–1961; US Covert Operations and the Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón); the missile crisis in 1962; and US economic sanctions and embargo. This literature is also distinctive for having produced a rich body of published documents and memoirs, principally of North American origins.

Overviews

The selections in this section provide a wide array of offerings dealing with relations between Cuba and the United States. With the passage of time, the quality of this scholarship has improved, due in large measure to the increasing availability of important documentation. The titles conform generally to three genres of approaches. One provides first-person perspectives of former US diplomatic officials, such as Smith 1962, Bonsal 1971, and Smith 1987. A second approach examines the subject of bilateral relations during the revolutionary years from a broad historical perspective, including Morley 1987 and Benjamin 1990. The third approach is one that focuses principally on the years after 1959; these include Brenner 1988 and Schoultz 2009. A noteworthy exception is Levine 2001, which offers a tightly developed case study of diplomacy and intrigue that sheds light on the larger ideological framework and political environment in which Cuba-US relations have functioned.

Benjamin, Jules R. The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
A survey of Cuba-US relations through the 20th century, with particular attention to the historical sources of the contentious issues that contributed to the post-1959 enmities.

'Bonsal, Philip W. Cuba, Castro, and the United States. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971.
A compelling first-person account of the deterioration and eventual rupture of Cuba-US relations between 1959 and 1961, as recounted by the last US ambassador to Cuba. Bonsal examines the mounting tensions between Havana and Washington within a larger historical background, seeking to explain the origins of the revolution and assessing the principal elements of contention between the countries.

Brenner, Philip. From Confrontation to Negotiation: U.S. Relations with Cuba. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988.
A balanced examination of US policy toward Cuba, focusing principally on the years between the 1960s and the 1980s. Attention is given to the factors acting to influence US policy, including developments in Cuba and domestic considerations.

LeoGrande, William M., and Peter Kornbluh. Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. DOI: 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469617633.001.0001
A thoroughly documented history of unofficial contacts, informal encounters, and secret negotiations between representatives of the United States and Cuba, spanning nearly fifty years between the 1960s and the first decade of the 21st century. Behind the public appearance of conflict and controversy existed private realms of engagement between representatives of both governments seeking to identify areas of mutual interests as the basis of improving relations.

Levine, Robert M. Secret Missions to Cuba: Fidel Castro, Bernardo Benes, and Cuban Miami. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
A detailed account of previously secret negotiations between the United States and Cuba—centered principally on the release of political prisoners—during the administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Focused on the “personal diplomacy” of Cuban American Bernardo Benes, the study examines back-channel negotiations in the context of hostility in Miami, suspicion in Havana, and skepticism in Washington.

Morley, Morris H. Imperial State and Revolution: The United States and Cuba, 1952–1986. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
A detailed analysis of the exercise of US hegemony in Cuba in the years immediately preceding the triumph of the revolution, and subsequent US efforts to thwart the program and policies of the revolution and to overthrow the Cuban government.

Schoultz, Lars. That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. DOI: 10.5149/9780807888605_schoultz
The most completely researched and most comprehensive account of relations between Cuba and the United States, fully spanning the years between 1959 and 2009. It is magisterial in sweep and compelling in detail, leaving virtually no aspect of Cuba-US relations unexamined.

Smith, Earl E. T. The Fourth Floor: An Account of the Castro Communist Revolution. New York: Random House, 1962.
A personal memoir by the US ambassador to Cuba, detailing Cuba-US relations during the final years of the government of Fulgencio Batista and the early months of the Castro government. Smith is highly critical of the US State Department, insisting that officials in Washington were responsible for the policies that enabled Fidel Castro to triumph and consolidate the revolution.

Smith, Wayne S. The Closest of Enemies. A Personal and Diplomatic Account of U.S.-Cuban Relations since 1957. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987.
An informative first-person account by a career foreign service officer, describing the final days of the Batista government and the early years of the Castro government. Smith returned to Cuba under the administration of President Jimmy Carter to supervise the opening of the new US Interests Section in Havana, which signaled the resumption of limited diplomatic ties.

Welch, Robert E., Jr. Response to Revolution: The United States and the Cuban Revolution, 1959–1961. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
A four-part discussion of Cuba-US relations during the early years of the revolution. The first part examines the background to revolution in Cuba. The second part addresses the foreign policy approaches taken by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Part 3 explores the role of public opinion as a factor in policy formation. The last section contextualizes Cuba-US relations in the context of the Cold War.

Covert Operations and the Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón)

The suspension of normal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States in January 1961 ended any hope that differences between the countries would be resolved by good-faith diplomacy. Indeed, four months later, the new Kennedy administration launched a CIA surrogate invasion of Cuba, using Cuban exiles in an attempt to overthrow the Castro government. A collection of documents in the form of oral histories in Blight and Kornbluh 1998 shed light on the abortive invasion. Insight is also available through first-person accounts of CIA organizers in Hunt 1973 and Lynch 1998. The account in Higgins 1987 approaches the Bay of Pigs as a matter of US policy, in the fullness of its bureaucratic intricacies and political infighting. The “big picture” narrative of the failed invasion is found in Wyden 1979. The failure and indeed the humiliation of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion prompted the Kennedy administration to organize covert operations against Cuba under the name of “Operation Mongoose,” including commando raids, sabotage, and repeated assassination efforts against the Cuban leadership. Ayers 1976 provides a view of an insider who coordinated covert operations, while Hinckle and Turner 1981 and Bohning 2006 offer a broad narrative sweep.

Ayers, Bradley Earl. The War That Never Was: An Insider's Account of CIA Covert Operations against Cuba. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976.
A first-person account by a US army officer assigned to the CIA to organize US covert operations against Cuba during the years following the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion. The memoir details commando raids, paramilitary training programs, and the clandestine infiltrations into Cuba during the early 1960s.

Blight, James G., and Peter Kornbluh, eds. Politics of Illusion: The Bay of Pigs Invasion Reexamined. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998.
An important collection of materials in the form of oral history transcripts of meetings that brought together former CIA agents, Soviet officials, anti-Castro participants, and other officials who were party to, or participants in, the Bay of Pigs operation. The discussions are rich with insight and information about the decisions, the thinking, and the objectives related to the Bay of Pigs.

Bohning, Don. The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations in Cuba, 1959–1965. Washington, DC: Potomac, 2006.
An overview of US efforts to oust Fidel Castro, addressing the Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose, and CIA activities in Miami during the 1960s. Attention is given to assassination plots on the life of Castro, the development of covert operations in acts of sabotage, and repeated efforts at political and economic destabilization.

Elliston, Jon, ed. Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda. New York: Melbourne, 1999.
More than chronicling anti-Castro propaganda, this volume provides an array of published documents in facsimile format, dealing with the Bay of Pigs, covert operations, and the development of Radio and TV Martí.

Higgins, Trumbull. The Perfect Failure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs. New York: Norton, 1987.
A critical analysis of the decision-making process and policy-implementing procedure. Higgins is particularly critical of the Kennedy White House for its inability to develop a coherent set of policy objectives for the abortive invasion.

Hinckle, Warren, and William W. Turner. The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War against Castro. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.
A thorough account of US covert operations against the government of Fidel Castro during the 1960s and 1970s. The study details US efforts to sabotage the Cuban economy by way of clandestine attacks against Cuban industry, manufacturing, and agriculture, and the multiple plots undertaken to assassinate the principal political leaders, including—and especially—Fidel Castro.

Hunt, E. Howard. Give Us This Day. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973.
A valuable first-person account of the Bay of Pigs operation by one of the CIA organizers of the abortive invasion. Hunt provides details on the organization, military training, and logistical preparations for the invasion, as well as offering perspectives on the political context of the plan.

Lynch, Grayston L. Decision for Disaster. Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs. Washington, DC: Brassy's, 1998.
An eyewitness account of the Bay of Pigs as told by a CIA case officer directing the invasion operations. He argues that the Kennedy administration betrayed the mission and effectively sealed the doom of operations.

Rasenberger, Jim. The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs. New York: Scribner, 2011.
The most recent reevaluation of the Bay of Pigs / Playa Girón invasion. Based on recently US documents declassified in the early 21st century, this accounts explores in detail the personalities, the policies, and the politics of the abortive CIA project. Failure is attributed principally to Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy for having fallen victim to hubris of their own making and an institutional failure to assess adequately conditions in Cuba.

Wyden, Peter. Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.
A well-written account of the ill-fated effort by the CIA to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro by way of a covert invasion of Cuba. The book is based in part on interviews with many of the key participants, both in Cuba and in the United States, and on new documentary materials obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Economic Sanctions and Political Isolation

A policy inaugurated as early as 1960, the embargo—known in Cuba as the bloqueo—was designed to subject Cuba to a combination of economic sanctions and political isolation. It has served as the principal US policy approach through which to secure the overthrow of the Cuban government since then. From the outset, the policy has had as its objective undermining the Cuban economy and thus inflicting hardship and adversity on the Cuban people as a way to promote discontent and disaffection, in the hope that distress on this scale would provoke Cubans to rise up and act to overthrow their government. Originally a policy responding to US interests, it soon became an issue in US domestic politics, as Haney and Wanderbush 2005 chronicles. That the embargo failed to achieve its purpose—remove the Castro government—did little to discourage its advocates. Kaplowitz 1998 and Spadoni 2010 detail the factors that neutralized the intent of US sanctions. This is not to suggest, however, that the embargo was without consequences. Schwab 1999 and US International Trade Commission 2000 provide insights into the effects of trade sanctions inside Cuba. Seeking to deliver the coup de grâce to deteriorating economic conditions in Cuba during the 1990s in the aftermath of the dissolution of the socialist bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States further tightened economic sanctions. Roy 2000 provides an overview of the domestic and international facets of the post-Soviet sanctions.

Haney, Patrick J., and Walt Wanderbush. The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Embargo. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005.
An informative four-decade history of the principal US policy approach to the Cuban Revolution. The authors examine the origins of the embargo in the context of the Cold War and beyond and the policy role of Congress, with particular attention given to the administration of Ronald Reagan, the Cuban American National Foundation, and the Helms-Burton Act.

Kaplowitz, Donna Rich. Anatomy of a Failed Embargo: U.S. Sanctions against Cuba. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998.
An examination of the ability of Cuba to survive more than five decades of US economic sanctions and political isolation. The principal factors cited include support from the Soviet Union, the capacity of the Cuban leadership to counteract some of the most deleterious effects of sanctions, and the success of the Cuban government in using US sanctions as a means of political mobilization.

Roy, Joaquín. Cuba, the United States, and the Helms-Burton Doctrine. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.
One of the most complete studies of the Helms-Burton law, examining the origins and development of the law within a context of domestic politics and the international community. Particular attention is given to reaction and response from Latin America and Europe.

Schwab, Paul. Cuba: Confronting the U.S. Embargo. New York: St. Martin's, 1999.
A detailed analysis of the impact of the US embargo on daily life in Cuba. A critique of the embargo, the book examines how the action constitutes a violation of human rights in detailing the consequences of economic sanctions, paying particular attention to matters of diet and nutrition, health care, and religion.

Spadoni, Paolo. Failed Sanctions: Why the U.S. Embargo against Cuba Could Never Work. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010. DOI: 10.5744/florida/9780813035154.001.0001
A critical analysis of the embargo as a failure, documenting the flaws in the policy whereby Cuba and nonstate agents, including multinational corporations, investors, food exporters, and visitors, have been able to vitiate the full impact of economic sanctions. Of particular value is the discussion of cash flows originating from the United States in the form of remittances to Cuba as serving to contradict the intent of US policy.

US International Trade Commission. The Economic Impact of U.S. Sanctions with Respect to Cuba. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2000.
The most complete assessment of the effects of the US embargo against Cuba. Spanning the 1960s through the 1990s, the review examines every sector of the Cuban economy, including agriculture, manufacturing, service sectors, and trade.

Cuban Foreign Relations

Cuban foreign relations have been a subject of continual research. Certainly, most of this scholarship has focused on Cuban relations with the United States. However, a considerable body of scholarship exists that is dedicated to Cuban foreign policy and to international relations with countries other than the United States. Certainly relations with the Soviet Union/Russia were of central importance and serve as the basis for the scholarship in Bain 2007 and Bain 2008. The research has labored under obvious handicaps, because information and data are often limited and must be presumed to be incomplete. Much of this literature corresponds to specific phases of Cuban foreign policy: the 1960s with Latin America in Ratliff 1976; Africa during the 1970s in Gleijeses 2002; the Third World in Erisman 1985; and the 1990s with Europe in Roy 2009. Useful too are those macro approaches that take in the broad sweep of Cuban international relations. Domínguez 1989 offers a broad perspective on the context and conduct of Cuban foreign relations. The collapse of the Soviet Union radically changed the goals of Cuban foreign relations vis-à-vis the whole world. Foreign relations during the 1990s and into the 21st century is the subject of Erisman 2000 and Erisman and Kirk 2006.

Bain, Mervyn J. Soviet-Cuban Relations, 1985–1991: Changing Perceptions in Moscow and Havana. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007.
An examination of the basis upon which Cuba and the Soviet Union engaged each other in matters of ideology, theory, and internal politics. The book is especially informative in providing an account of the circumstances of glasnost as a factor in the deteriorating relations between the two countries.

Bain, Mervyn J. Russian-Cuban Relations since 1992: Continuing Camaraderie in a Post-Soviet World. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008.
A sequel to Bain's earlier volume on Cuban-Soviet relations. Attention is given to the dissolution of the Soviet-Cuban alliance and the character of the resumption of diplomatic and economic ties. These relations are examined in a broader international context, with particular attention given to Soviet-Cuban ties vis-à-vis the United States.

Domínguez, Jorge I. To Make a World Safe for Revolution: Cuba's Foreign Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
A comprehensive examination of Cuban foreign policy in the first thirty years of the revolution. The study is especially good at exploring the complex early relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union. Attention is given to Cuban support of international revolutionary movements, Cuban diplomacy in Latin America, and the context and content of Cuban foreign policy deliberations.

Erisman, H. Michael. Cuba's International Relations: The Anatomy of a Nationalistic Foreign Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985.
An examination of the nationalist sources of Cuban foreign policy after 1959. Particular attention is given to Cuban relations with Third World countries; challenges the prevailing view that Cuba acted as a surrogate in the defense of the interests of the Soviet Union.

Erisman, H. Michael. Cuba's Foreign Relations in a Post-Soviet World. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.
A broadly conceived assessment of Cuban foreign relations, contextualized in the decades prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and tracing in chronological fashion the international consequences of Cuban post-Soviet realignments.

Erisman, H. Michael, and John M. Kirk. Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy: The Impact of the “Special Period.” Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006.
A collection of essays addressing the post-Soviet shifts of Cuban diplomacy and foreign trade arrangements. The essays are in the form of case studies exploring adaptation by Cuba in its relations with the European Union, Canada, Spain, Russia, Mexico, and the nations of the Caribbean.

'Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
The most comprehensive account of Cuban foreign policy in Africa. Well researched and drawing on archival records in the United States, Africa, and Cuba, the work offers the definitive account of nearly two decades of Cuban involvement in the African liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

Gleijeses, Piero. Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976–1991. New Cold War History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.
On the basis of research conducted in multiple archives in the United States, South Africa, and Cuba, Gleijeses offers probing insight into the complexities of interacting and conflicting foreign policies. Cuban motives and goals are chronicled in detail through access to archival records never before utilized, serving to set in relief the important role Cubans played in politico-military developments in southern Africa.

Mikoyan, Sergo. The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro, Mikoyan, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Missiles of November. Edited by Svetlana Savranskaya. Cold War International History Project. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2012.
Important new perspectives are provided toward a deeper understanding of the multifaceted US-USSR negotiations during the missile crisis of October 1962. Based on Soviet documents, the account is told by the son of First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet official charged with directing negotiations with the United States and Cuba, who also served as his father's personal secretary during the crisis. The account also offers important insights into the character of Cuba-Soviet relations during the early years of the revolution.

Ratliff, William E. Castroism and Communism in Latin America, 1959–1976: The Varieties of Marxist–Leninist Experience. Hoover Institution Studies 56. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1976.
An examination of Cuban foreign policy in Latin America, with a particular analysis of the interactions of Soviet and Chinese communism as they affected the approaches taken by the Cuban government. Of particular interest is the role played by Cuba in supporting guerrilla movements in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s.

Roy, Joaquín. The Cuban Revolution (1959–2009): Relations with Spain, the European Union, and the United States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. DOI: 10.1057/9780230101364
A wide-ranging survey of Cuban relations with Europe, and particularly how Cuban foreign relations with Spain and the European Union have figured into the international politics of the Cuban leadership in creating “space” from US policy.

Domestic Politics and Government

Gaining access to the internal workings of the Cuban revolutionary political system in virtually all realms, including government, party, and military, has posed a challenge to scholars for most of the period since 1959. It is indeed an opaque system, one in which Fidel Castro has loomed large, a condition documented well in Halperin 1972 and Domínguez 1978. The triumph of the revolution ushered in more than a new system of government. It also introduced a new political culture. Fagen 1969—dated as it is—still offers one of the most lucid accounts of this transformation. Almost twenty years later, Medin 1990 chronicles the ensuing results. The scholarship has provided thoughtful insights and suggests useful approaches to the mechanisms by which affairs of the nation, in their multiple and multifaceted forms, have functioned in a context of changing international conditions. Everything changed after the 1990s during the post-Soviet years. A new role was given to the Cuban armed forces, as Klepak 2005 expertly documents. Centro de Estudios sobre América 1992 and Azicri 2000 examine the major changes that overtook the internal political system in the 1900s. The transitions that occurred in the nations of the former Soviet bloc, but which did not happen in Cuba, invited comparative analysis. López 2002 compares changes in eastern Europe with the fact of no change in Cuba.

Azicri, Max. Cuba Today and Tomorrow: Reinventing Socialism. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.
An overview of the experience of the Special Period, examining the impact on Cuba of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the response to economic scarcity and efforts to reorganize the economy, the changes in the political system, the resurgence of religion, and the complexities of Cuban relations with the United States.

Centro de Estudios sobre América, ed. The Cuban Revolution into the 1990s: Cuban Perspectives. Latin American Perspectives 10. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992.
An important contribution providing English-language readers with a perspective from Cuba. Published in the early days of the Special Period, the volume examines the structure of political leadership, patterns of social change, strategies of economic development, the changing political culture, sugar production, the impact of the crisis on the family unit, and medicine.

Domínguez, Jorge I. Cuba: Order and Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978.
This comprehensive study of the first twenty years of the Cuban Revolution has stood the test of time well. Thematic attention is given to the principal facets of the revolution, including the armed forces, the Communist Party, international relations, agriculture and agrarian policy, political culture, and the development of structures for mass political participation.

Fagen, Richard R. The Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969.
A now-classic work of scholarship, examining the early years of the Cuban transition to socialism. Attention is given to the literacy campaign of 1961, the schools of revolutionary instruction, and the establishment of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

Guerra, Lillian. Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959–1971. Envisioning Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. DOI: 10.5149/9780807837368_guerra
A thoughtful examination of the relationship between visual representation and mass mobilization as the making—and undoing—of the consensus of the revolution. Attention is directed to the impact of official narratives of revolutionary change and the accompanying imagery of revolution as factors of everyday life within households across the island.

Halperin, Maurice. The Rise and Decline of Fidel Castro: An Essay in Contemporary History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
An examination of the consolidation of the revolution between 1959 and 1964. Attention is given to foreign relations and particularly the debate within the Cuban government about the ideological trajectory Cuba was to pursue in its relations with the socialist bloc.

Klepak, Hal. Cuba's Military 1990–2005: Revolutionary Soldiers during Counter-revolutionary Times. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
An informative account of the consequences of the post-Soviet experience on the Cuban armed forces. Arguing that the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) have served as one of the principal pillars of the political system, the author examines the expanding role of the military in the domestic sphere—and especially in the economy—as well as the influence of the military on international initiatives.

López, Juan J. Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
A comparative study of Cuba with the German Democratic Republic, Romania, and Czechoslovakia, examining the ability of the Cuban government to survive politically the withering economic conditions that ensued in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The principal line of argument is that the absence of civil society groups acted as a deterrent to change in Cuba, circumstances the author attributes to the counterproductive consequences of the US embargo.

Medin, Tzvi. Cuba: The Shaping of Revolutionary Consciousness. Translated by Martha Grenzback. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990.
An examination of the early efforts of the Cuban government to foster the development of a revolutionary consciousness, through education, film, literature, theater, music, historiography, the armed forces, and mass organizations, as a means of mass mobilization on behalf of the programs and policies of the revolution.

Economy

The subject of the Cuban economy has been the source of sustained scholarly interest since 1959. The transformation from a market economy to a planned economy, efforts to end dependency on foreign exchange generated by a one-crop system, matters of development strategies, trade and commerce, and the new economic logic under socialism are subjects addressed generally in Boorstein 1968 and Mesa-Lago 1981. Something of an early macro view of the relationship among the multiple elements of the economy was assembled in Seers, et al. 1964. The discussion of the Cuban economy has principally emphasized agriculture and is examined in Cuban Economist Research Project 1965. Within agriculture, the focus on sugar has prevailed. Roca 1976, Brunner 1977, and Alvarez and Castellanos 2001 detail the debate on development strategies vis-à-vis the expansion of sugar production since 1959. The calamity that befell Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union was most profoundly experienced in the economy. This is a subject that will undoubtedly serve as the focus of decades of future scholarship; Domínguez, et al. 2004 offers a useful point of departure.

Alvarez, José, and Lázaro Peña Castellanos. Cuba's Sugar Industry. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
A survey of the development of the sugar industry since 1959, with a special focus on the late 1990s. In providing an examination of both internal production issues technology and planning the study is especially effective in contextualizing developments in Cuba within larger market circumstances, particularly trade relations with the Soviet Union and Europe.

Boorstein, Edward. The Economic Transformation of Cuba. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968.
A first-person account of the transition from capitalism to socialism during the early 1960s. The author worked with a number of important Cuban agencies, including the National Bank, the Bank of Foreign Commerce, and the Ministry of Foreign Commerce. He participated in the planning and implementation of a wide range of decisions affecting various sectors of the economy.

Brunner, Heinrich. Cuban Sugar Policy from 1963 to 1970. Translated by Marguerite Borchardt and H. F. Bloch de Rothermann. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977.
A study of the major developmental strategies adopted by Cuba as the leadership sought to maximize sugar production between 1965 and 1970. The study examines the origins of the theoretical guidelines, the application of theory, and the specific relevance to sugar production. A year-by-year account of the policies and politics of sugar harvests, leading to a fuller understanding of the crisis of the failed ten-million-ton crop of 1970.

Cuban Economist Research Project. Cuba, Agriculture and Planning. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1965.
A critical survey of agricultural development and state planning during the early years of the revolution. Attention is given to sugar production, the agrarian reform, livestock and ranching, and the attempts to coordinate rationing and production.

Domínguez, Jorge I., Omar Everleny Pérez Villanueva, and Lorena Barberia, eds. The Cuban Economy at the Start of the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2004.
An important collection of essays by a number of economic specialists, in Cuba and outside, dealing with key aspects of the rapidly changing Cuban economy in the post-Soviet period. The volume is organized into four parts: macroeconomic issues, the international economic context, social policy and welfare, and transnational networks and government responses.

Koont, Sinan. Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba. Contemporary Cuba. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011. DOI: 10.5744/florida/9780813037578.001.0001
A study of the phenomenon of urban agriculture, largely in response to the collapse of commercial agriculture in the immediate post-Soviet years and the end of Soviet subsidies, including the loss of petroleum, petrochemical fertilizers, and industrial farming equipment. Attention is given to the development of strategies of food production through urban gardens, specifically to produce food supplies near or within densely populated centers, thereby facilitating distribution and marketing, reducing transportation costs, lowering fuel consumption, and improving public access to agricultural products.

Mesa-Lago, Carmelo. The Economy of Socialist Cuba: A Two-Decade Appraisal. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981.
A comprehensive overview of economic performance in the early decades of the revolution, with particular attention to economic growth, diversification initiatives, employment patterns, income distribution, social services, and Cuban efforts at economic independence.

Ritter, Archibald R. M. The Economic Development of Revolutionary Cuba: Strategy and Performance. New York: Praeger, 1974.
A thorough examination of new economic programs designed to address problems of monoculture, underemployment/unemployment, maldistribution of wealth, and a deeply established pattern of dependency on the United States. The study is useful in chronicling institutional developments, the use of moral incentives, the disengagement of the Cuban economy from the United States, and the cost and the consequences of the failed ten-million-ton sugar crop of 1970.

Roca, Sergio. Cuban Economic Policy and Ideology: The Ten Million Ton Sugar Harvest. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE, 1976.
A concise examination of one of the most significant periods of the revolution. The attempt to harvest the ten-million-ton crop is studied from the perspectives of planning and consequences.

Seers, Dudley, Andres Bianchi, Richard Jolly, and Max Nolff. Cuba: The Economic and Social Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964.
A collection of four lengthy and informative essays—one by each author—addressing the socioeconomic setting of the revolution, agriculture, education, and industry.

Social Transformations

Some of the most far-reaching changes effected by the revolution have been registered in the multiple social realms in which people live their daily lives. The revolution transformed Cuban society radically, overturning value systems and rearranging moral hierarchies, often at breathtaking speed. No facet of everyday life, either in private spheres or in public realms, escaped unaffected. The degree to which attitudes were modified and otherwise adapted to the new order of things is skillfully assessed in Bunck 1994. Gender relations, sexuality, family life, sports and culture, education, and health care were profoundly affected. The hostility toward homosexuals has been a subject of continuing scholarly interest, an instance in which the difference in attitudes before and after the revolution was negligible, except that after the revolution the state assumed a much more active and aggressive role in harassment and persecution. Bejel 2001 provides a broad historical perspective on views toward homosexuality, upon which attitudes after 1959 were derived. Some of the more egregious facets of these conditions are chronicled in Salas 1979 and Young 1982. Services provided by the state also changed, and perhaps nowhere with greater impact than in health care. One of the most thorough examinations of the strategies of health care as a matter of domestic policies and international relations is Feinsilver 1993. A useful historical context to the changes in health care is found in Danielson 1979. Some of the most far-reaching and indeed the most-enduring transformations occurred within the social fabric of Cuban society. The family as it had been previously constituted underwent severe stress and indeed was itself a manifestation of the changes overtaking Cuban society at large. These conditions in their multiple forms are examined in Moreira, et al. 1990. Hernández, et al. 1973 focuses on rising incidents of divorce. The years after the disintegration of the socialist bloc of nations and the collapse of the Soviet Union wrought havoc in Cuba. Weinreb 2009 examines the circumstances of scarcity and shortages as they affected the everyday life of households.

Bejel, Emilio. Gay Cuban Nation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
A thoughtful analysis of homosexuality and homophobia in the context of nation building and nationalism, spanning the late 19th through the end of the 20th centuries. Particular attention is given to the works of some of Cuba's most important writers of fiction, including José Martí, Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta, José Lezama Lima, Severo Sarduy, and Virgilio Piñera, among others.

Brotherton, P. Sean. Revolutionary Medicine: Health and the Body in Post-Soviet Cuba. Experimental Futures. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. DOI: 10.1215/9780822395140
An examination of the far-reaching consequences of the cessation of Soviet subsidies and renewed US economic sanctions on the health-care delivery system. Attention is given to a sober analysis of the decline of health-care services and the diminution of available medicines, told through the lives of individual Cuban citizens and analyzed as a matter of state policy.

Bunck, Julie Marie. Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.
An overview of government efforts to transform the cultural setting of daily life in Cuba between 1959 and the early 1990s and popular responses to those efforts, focusing on four specific areas: youth, women, labor, and sports. Attention is given to the ideological imperatives around which Cuban society organized after 1959 as a means of integrating Cubans into the project of revolution.

Danielson, Ross. Cuban Medicine. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1979.
A historical survey of Cuban health services, spanning the period from Spanish colonialism to the triumph of the revolution. It is especially useful in providing the social, economic, and political milieu in which health services were delivered—or not. Most of the book is dedicated to the twenty-year period following the revolution.

Feinsilver, Julie M. Healing the Masses: Cuban Health Politics at Home and Abroad. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
A comprehensive overview of the development of the Cuban health-care system since the triumph of the revolution, examining health-care strategies that commit to universal access to health care and comprehensive health education under circumstances of economic adversity. Also examined are facets of Cuban medical internationalism, including disaster relief, donations of medical supplies, and deployment of health-care volunteers throughout the world.

Hamilton, Carrie. Sexual Revolutions in Cuba: Passion, Politics, and Memory. Envisioning Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. DOI: 10.5149/9780807882511_hamilton
Through the use of oral history, literary sources, and media accounts, Hamilton offers a probing examination of sex and sexuality, spanning the early years of the revolution through the Special Period, addressing such themes as romantic love and courtship, homosexuality, sexual violence, and sex tourism.

Hernández, Jorge, Angel Eng, María T. Bermúdez, and Mariela Columbie. Estudio sobre el divorcio. Havana, Cuba: Centro de Información Científica y Técnica/Universidad de La Habana, 1973.
An examination by four sociologists from the University of Havana of the circumstances surrounding the increase in divorce rates in Cuba between 1958 and 1968. Attention is given to matters of age, length of marriage, education, children, and economic circumstances.

Moreira, Inés, Mayda Álvarez Suárez, María del Carmen Caño Secade, Gilda Castilla García, and Maritza García Alonzo. Análisis de las investigaciones sobre la familia cubana, 1970–1987. Havana, Cuba: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1990.
An overview of the emerging family structure in revolutionary Cuba, paying attention to the changing circumstances of new family structures, including education, childrearing, the dissemination of family values, and marriage and divorce.

Salas, Luis P. Social Control and Deviance in Cuba. New York: Praeger, 1979.
A well-researched study examining various aspects of criminality and behavior deemed “deviant” in post-revolutionary society. Using Cuban standards of deviant behavior, the study examines juvenile delinquency, homosexuality, suicide, and the court systems in which these issues are litigated and resolved. Attention is also directed to the police and to the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) as agents of social control.

Weinreb, Amelia Rosenberg. Cuba in the Shadow: Daily Life in the Twilight of the Revolution. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009. DOI: 10.5744/florida/9780813033693.001.0001
A probing ethnographic examination of the impact of the Special Period in Cuban households, exploring the varieties of strategies used to survive during years of deepening hardship. Insight is offered into the workings of the black market as a facet of daily life and the multiple factors that act on decisions about whether to seek to emigrate.

Young, Allen. Gays under the Cuban Revolution. San Francisco: Grey Fox, 1982.
A study critical of the Cuban Revolution for its hostile policies toward homosexuals. Attention is given to government harassment and intolerance of gays in official settings and social contexts.

Women

The scholarship on women in Cuba has expanded rapidly in the last several decades. The literature takes several forms: first-person testimonios or interviews, the examination of the role of women in the revolution—both in the armed insurrection and in the post-1959 period—and the impact of the revolution on the lives of women. Those transformations occasioned by the revolution serve as a dominant theme of the literature, such as Smith and Padula 1996 provides. The role of women in the armed struggle during the late 1950s is addressed in Klouzal 2008. Among the most-relevant and useful documents, pronouncements, and statutes affecting the status and role of women, specifically on matters related to political participation, health and education, employment, and culture, are contained in Cuba, Ministerio de Justicia 1977 and Stone 1981. The voices of women are obtained through interviews and are found in Randall 1974, Holt-Seeland 1982, and Moore and Hunter 1997. These first-person perspectives should be used in conjunction with studies of the status of women, such as Randall 1981 and Luciak 2007.

Andaya, Elise. Conceiving Cuba: Reproduction, Women, and the State in the Post-Soviet Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2014.
A thoughtful ethnographic study of the politics of reproductive health in socialist Cuba. Focus is on the role of the state in the development of gender ideologies as they insinuate themselves into the daily life of families and households. Decisions bearing on family planning, access to prenatal care, and childrearing strategies are examined in the context of national policy.

Cuba, Ministerio de Justicia. La mujer en Cuba socialista. Havana, Cuba: Editorial ORBE, 1977.
A collection of documents, statutes, proclamations, and legal codes pertaining to the status and rights of women after 1959.

Holt-Seeland, Inger. Women of Cuba. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1982.
A generally sympathetic account of the improved condition of women in Cuba after the revolution. The study includes a series of interviews with women of different social backgrounds, occupational positions, and educational experiences, including a farmworker, a brigade leader, a student, a homemaker, and a factory worker.

Klouzal, Linda A. Women and Rebel Communities in the Cuban Insurgent Movement, 1952–1959. Youngstown, NY: Cambria, 2008.
A history of the insurrection against the government of Fulgencio Batista, with specific attention to the presence of women. The book examines the contribution of women to the insurgent victory, from direct participation in guerrilla combat units, to the gathering of intelligence and to the collection of funds, to participation in the plans for military actions, to providing health care for wounded insurgents.

Luciak, Ilja A. Gender and Democracy in Cuba. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007.
A comprehensive overview of the evolving presence and participation of women in the Cuban revolutionary process, spanning the insurrectionary war through the early years of the 21st century. Changing gender roles are set in a larger context of changing social and economic conditions. The book argues that the revolution registered notable gains in advancing women's social and economic rights and expanding formal political participation by women.

Moore, Marjorie, and Adrienne Hunter. Seven Women and the Cuban Revolution. Toronto: Lugus, 1997.
A series of extensive interviews with seven women from different socioeconomic origins, reflecting on the experience of the Cuban Revolution in very personal ways.

Randall, Margaret. Cuban Women Now: Interviews with Cuban Women. Toronto: Women's Press, 1974.
An account of the revolution from the perspective of the lives of women. Based on twenty-five interviews, the book provides a detailed examination of a cross-section of women in Cuba as they experienced the far-reaching changes wrought by the first fifteen years of the revolution.

Randall, Margaret. Women in Cuba: Twenty Years Later. Brooklyn, NY: Smyrna, 1981.
A decade-long assessment of the changes in the status and condition of women in socialist Cuba. Among the principal themes addressed are the lives of peasant women, women's reproductive rights, women and the family, the participation of women in the arts, and the role of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC).

Smith, Lois M., and Alfredo Padula. Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Beginning with the role of women in the armed struggle against the government of Fulgencio Batista, this useful study of the role and contribution of women to the revolution gives particular attention to the organization of the FMC. The focus is on the engagement of women in health, education, reproductive rights, and labor.

Stone, Elizabeth, ed. Women and the Cuban Revolution. New York: Pathfinder, 1981.
A collection of translated documents and speeches dealing with women in Cuba after the triumph of the revolution, including speeches made by Fidel Castro and Vilma Espín, president of the FMC. The documents include the Maternity Law for Working Women (1974), the Communist Party thesis on the full exercise of women's equality (1975), and the Family Code (1975).

Race

The scholarship of race relations in Cuba after the triumph of the revolution has been the subject of increasing scholarly attention. The broad historical context for an understanding of politics of race is provided in Pérez Sarduy and Stubbs 2000 and Fernández 2010. That the new leadership in 1959 committed itself to the eradication of racism and racial discrimination set one standard by which the achievements in Cuba would be measured. Moore 1988 indicts the leadership of the revolution precisely for having failed to live up to the promise to end discrimination. On the other hand, Sawyer 2006, while not uncritical, is nevertheless far more generous in assessing the achievements of the revolution. The theme of race in early-21st-century Cuba is controversial precisely because patterns of racial discrimination have indeed persisted, and this is the principal theme of Morales Domínguez 2007. The emphasis on the all-encompassing construct of nationality as a source of unity, instead of on racial identity as a potential source of division, has added to the complexity of the study of race relations. The African antecedents of Cuban culture—before and after the revolution—insinuate themselves into virtually every aspect of daily life. Matibag 1996 provides insightful perspectives on the African presence in religion and literature.

Fernández, Nadine T. Revolutionizing Romance: Interracial Couples in Contemporary Cuba. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010.
A thoughtful examination of interracial relationships, spanning the colonial period through modern Cuba. The study is particularly focused on the post-1959 period; provides a wide-ranging analysis of the factor of race in everyday life, in households and the economy, and in the circumstances surrounding the persistence of racism.

Matibag, Eugenio. Afro-Cuban Religious Experience: Cultural Reflections in Narrative. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996.
A survey overview of African-derived religious traditions that have informed Cuban culture; spans the 20th century and concludes with an examination of the impact of the revolution of 1959, giving particular attention to literary forms.

Moore, Carlos. Castro, the Blacks, and Africa. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, 1988.
A searing indictment of the racial politics of the Cuban Revolution, accusing the Cuban revolutionary leadership of acting on the basis of the same racial prejudices as those of the prerevolutionary past. The book challenges the proposition that the revolution has in fact advanced the cause of racial justice on the island in any form other than through mere rhetoric and slogans.

Morales Domínguez, Esteban. Desafíos de la problemática racial en Cuba. Havana, Cuba: Fundación Fernando Ortiz, 2007.
A critical study of race and race relations in socialist Cuba. It provides a compelling analysis of the still-elusive goal of eliminating racism as a factor of the actual Cuban condition. Particular attention is given to the impact of the post-Soviet economic crisis, and the ways that socioeconomic disparities that developed after the early 1990s served to exacerbate race relations.

Morales Domínguez, Esteban. Race in Cuba: Essays on the Revolution and Racial Inequality. Edited and translated by Gary Prevost and August Nimtz. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2013.
A collection of essays written over the previous decade, reprinted and translated, addressing matters of race relations, identity, and the complexities of the relationship between the achievements of the revolution and the expectations of Afro-Cubans. The persistence of racial discrimination is examined within the larger historical context, as a legacy of slavery and a circumstance of enduring socioeconomic inequality.

Pérez Sarduy, Pedro, and Jean Stubbs, eds. Afro-Cuban Voices: On Race and Identity in Contemporary Cuba. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.
An anthology of materials addressing issues of race, spanning the colonial period through the revolution. The materials include poems, folklore, religion, history, and excerpts from several novels.

Sawyer, Mark Q. Racial Politics in Post-revolutionary Cuba. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
A critical but balanced study of race relations within a comparative framework. Recognizing the accomplishments of the Cuban Revolution, the author nevertheless argues that the goal of racial equality has not been met. In a particularly interesting conclusion, the author examines the circumstances of race relations within the Cuban and Cuban American community in Miami, thereby setting in relief distinctions with the island.

Labor

The literature on labor and working-class politics has long enjoyed a place of prominence in the scholarship on Cuba. Much of the literature is given to the presence and participation of labor in the revolutionary struggles of the 1920s–1930s and the 1950s. Alexander 2002 is an example of this perspective. That the leadership of the Cuban Revolution proclaimed the Marxist–Leninist character of the revolution in the early 1960s served to give still-further stimulus on the island to research designed to celebrate the participation of workers in the revolutionary victories of the 19th and 20th centuries. Zeitlin 1967 chronicles labor attitudes early in the revolution as a means to ascertain the support of the working class for the programs and policies of the revolution and should be studied in conjunction with Fuller 1992, which draws on research on similar themes conducted twenty-five years later. Exactly how the working class benefited from the revolution has drawn considerable attention and is the focus of Mesa-Lago 1968.

Alexander, Robert J. A History of Organized Labor in Cuba. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
A survey history of the Cuban trade union movement, spanning the late colonial period, through the republic, and into the early years of the Castro government. The book focuses principally on the Confederación Nacional Obrera Cubana (CNOC) and the Confederación de Trabajadores Cubanos (CTC).

Fuller, Linda. Work and Democracy in Socialist Cuba. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.
An examination of workplace democracy, on the basis of interviews, and government materials. Of particular importance is the degree to which an examination of unions, the Communist Party, management and planning systems, and grievance committees is integrated into a fuller understanding of labor conditions in socialist Cuba.

Mesa-Lago, Carmelo. The Labor Sector and Socialist Distribution in Cuba. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1968.
An important study examining worker productivity within a system dedicated to social equality and moral incentives, principally for the years 1962–1965. Attention focuses on the establishment of individual output standards, wage scales, and the development of socialist emulation. These were concerns based principally on policy goals and not necessarily on practical experience.

Mesa-Lago, Carmelo, and Jorge Pérez-López. Cuba under Raul Castro: Assessing the Reforms. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2013.
An important assessment of the purpose and progress of economic reforms introduced by Raúl Castro. The reforms have been characterized by diminished emphasis on ideology and increased attention to what “works,” in areas of production, distribution, and marketing.

Zeitlin, Maurice. Revolutionary Politics and the Cuban Working Class. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967.
A now-classic study of working-class attitudes during the early years of the Cuban Revolution, on the basis of more than two hundred interviews in twenty-one industrial plants across the island in 1962. Workers were classified according to the degree of skills, employment history before the revolution, sex, race, attitudes toward communism before the revolution, and the degree of mobility after the triumph of the revolution.

Culture

The achievements registered in Cuba after the triumph of the revolution in the fields of literature, the plastic arts, the visual arts, the performing arts, and sports have been notable and recognized internationally. Films in particular have been internationally recognized, as carefully documented in Myerson 1973 and Chanan 1986. The examination of cultural production that developed in Cuba after 1959 provides a particularly insightful means by which to understand the character and complexities of the revolution. An overview of the impact of the revolution on national cultural production is found in La cultura en Cuba socialista (Arias 1982). Poets and playwrights, novelists and screenwriters, and artists and musicians offer access to the Cuban reality not readily available by any other means. An invaluable introduction to the fiction of the revolution is provided in Menton 1975. Musical genres bore the distinctive traces of the forces that were radically changing all other facets of Cuban daily life. Moore 2006 examines the meaning of music as aesthetic production in a revolutionary environment. Cuban revolutionary pop art, most vividly conveyed through posters, is well chronicled—and reproduced—in Stermer and Sontag 1970 and Cushing 2003.

Arias, Salvador. La cultura en Cuba socialista. Havana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1982.
A useful compilation of essays examining cultural developments within the first three decades of the revolution. Attention is given to literature, the plastic arts, music, dance, and film.

Chanan, Michael. The Cuban Image: Cinema and Cultural Politics in Cuba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
A survey of Cuban film, with principal attention given to the post-1959 period. The volume examines virtually every important film produced in Cuba through 1985: the writers, directors, actors, and technical achievements. Cuban cinema is set against the larger context of the politics of the revolution, with film serving as a means by which to address social issues, political conflict, and concerns of cultural freedom.

Cushing, Lincoln. Revolución! Cuban Poster Art. San Francisco: Chronicle, 2003.
A well-produced volume of Cuban propaganda art, including some 150 reproductions of posters spanning the years between the 1960s and the 1980s. The posters are themselves reflections of the phases of the Cuban Revolution, bearing on internationalist projects, solidarity with movements of national liberation elsewhere, the sugar harvest, and the literacy campaign, as well as film, music, dance, and sports.

Menton, Seymour. Prose Fiction of the Cuban Revolution. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975.
A comprehensive overview of the historical and social forces that shaped fictional prose in socialist Cuba. More than one hundred novels and short stories published between 1959 and 1973 are examined, with attention to the changing social environment in which they were produced. The periodization scheme includes four distinct periods: 1959–1960 (struggle against tyranny), 1961–1965 (exorcism and existentialism), 1966–1970 (experimentation and escapism), and 1971–1975 (the ideological novel short story).

Moore, Robin D. Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520247109.001.0001
A thorough study of the musicians and music of Cuba after 1959, with particular attention to the governmental policies that provided the context within which music developed. The study is especially good at documenting the relationship between political change and cultural activity.

Myerson, Michael, ed. Memories of Underdevelopment: The Revolutionary Films of Cuba. New York: Grossman, 1973.
A useful collection of essays addressing the development of cinema in Cuba after the triumph of the revolution. The themes include movie scripts, interviews, the Cuban Film Institute, and an analysis of several important—and some not so important—Cuban films.

Stermer, Dugald, and Susan Sontag. The Art of Revolution. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970.
A richly illustrated, oversized volume providing one of the best-available reproductions of early Cuban poster art. The collection includes representative posters by the Organization of Solidarity with Asia, Africa, and Latin America; the Commission for Revolutionary Action; Casa de las Américas; and the Cuban Film Institute.

Migration

The subject of Cuban immigration to the United States in the years following the triumph of the revolution has developed into an important theme in the scholarship on Cuba and indeed has reached voluminous proportions. Fagen, et al. 1968 is based on pioneering research on the character and composition of the early migration. The literature on Cuban immigration to the United States subsequently developed into a scholarship subgenre unto itself. It has engaged scholars from many disciplines, including historians, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and literary scholars. The scholarship tends to focus on the various key periods of Cuban immigration, each corresponding to the changing circumstances of the revolution, including the early years through the 1960s, the Mariel boat lift in 1980, the emigration crisis of 1994, and the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Much of this scholarship—such as Pedraza 2007—examines the circumstances in Cuba that contribute to the out-migration. The 1980 crisis centered on the Mariel exodus is the subject of Masud-Piloto 1988. The symbiotic relationship between Cubans abroad and Cubans on the island is examined in Eckstein 2009. Another facet of the scholarship examines the assimilation of Cubans into the United States. Grenier and Pérez 2003 provides a broad historical perspective to the phenomenon of Cuban migration northward. Llanes 1982 is an attempt to delineate a “profile” of the Cuban community in the United States. Community studies provide close-up case studies, such as Rogg 1974 in New Jersey and García 1996 in Florida. Religion as a consideration in the decision to emigrate and as a factor in assimilation is the subject of Poyo 2007.

Eckstein, Susan E. The Immigrant Divide: How Cuban Americans Changed the U.S. and Their Homeland. New York: Routledge, 2009.
A survey of Cuban immigration between the early 1960s and the early 21st century, with a focus on the social, cultural, economic, and political adaptations made in the United States. The study examines the participation of Cuban émigrés in the lives of families who remain on the island, and the role played by Cuban Americans in mediating the harshness of post-Soviet daily life.

Fagen, Richard R., Richard R. Brody, and Thomas J. O’Leary. Cubans in Exile: Disaffection and Revolution. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968.
An examination of Cuban emigration that has stood the test of time well and indeed has become a landmark study of migration to the United States. The study explores social origins, professional training, racial composition, and income distribution of Cuban exiles after 1959.

García, María Cristina. Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959–1994. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
A thorough examination of Cuban immigration to Florida, with a focus on the circumstances contributing to exile and the social, economic, cultural, and political impact of the Cuban presence in Florida. The study examines the transformations associated with newly arrived Cubans, their integration into the larger cultural ambience of the United States, and the development of new Cuban American identities.

Grenier, Guillermo J., and Lisandro Pérez. The Legacy of Exile: Cubans in the United States. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2003.
A brief survey of Cuban immigration to the United States, beginning with the historical antecedents in the 19th century and concluding with the migration of the post-Soviet years. Attention is given to the impact in Miami of the Cuban presence, family structure and economic activity, cultural assimilation, and political participation.

Llanes, José. Cuban Americans: Masters of Survival. Cambridge, MA: Abt, 1982.
An examination of Cuban emigration, on the basis of fifty-eight composite characters created out of extensive interviews with 187 collaborators. The study includes material dealing with the earliest wave of exiles during the late 1950s and early 1960s through the Mariel emigration of 1980. The narratives are in the form of the exiles’ own words, with extensive commentary by the author.

Masud-Piloto, Félix Roberto. With Open Arms: Cuban Migration to the United States. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1988.
A careful study of the interaction between US immigration policies under the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations and Cuban emigration strategies. Particular attention is given to the Camarioca boat lift of 1965 and the Mariel boat lift of 1980.

Pedraza, Silvia. Political Disaffection in Cuba's Revolution and Exodus. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
An insightful study into the political attitudes of Cuban émigrés, spanning the years after the triumph of the revolution through the early 21st century. Of particular interest is the examination of the shifts that occurred over the course of successive waves of emigration, bearing on social characteristics and attitudes corresponding to different political generations.

Poyo, Gerald E. Cuban Catholics in the United States, 1960–1980: Exile and Integration. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
An overview of the ways that Catholic thought shaped Cuban action and reaction to the momentous events surrounding the confrontation with the policies and programs of the Cuban Revolution. The study is especially good at examining the complex process of emigration and assimilation at the intersection of politics and religion.

Rogg, Eleanor R. The Assimilation of Cuban Exiles: The Role of Community and Class. New York: Aberdeen, 1974.
A study of Cuban immigration to West New York, New Jersey, with attention given to adjustment and assimilation to life in the United States. Based on a random selection of 250 heads of households, representing approximately 10 percent of the total community, the study seeks to measure the process by which Cubans were integrated into their new settings.