At one level, this is a very straightforward book. As the title makes clear, it is a history of Cuba since 1959, clearly intended as a text for students, as indicated by the early explanation of the differences between capitalism and socialism, and also the exposition of approaches to understanding revolution. Based on the (perhaps questionable) premise that post-1959 Cuba has largely been studied by social scientists and ignored by historians – questionable because all studies have tended to adopt a historical approach in their explanations of the background to 1959 and in their periodisation of the post-1959 years – the topic is approached largely thematically, in keeping with several other recent studies, with chronology addressed only in the introductory chapter devoted to the pre-1959 background, the one on the post-1990 Special Period and, in between, the single chapter covering the political ‘experiments’ from the 1960s to 1989.
However, the book is in fact quite unusual, in that it is a US-produced text which scrupulously tries to strike a judicious and objective balance between competing interpretations of an always contentious subject. In fact, Chomsky has clearly drawn on a broad range of sources, although the book strangely, and disappointingly, ignores many of the early classics (Draper, Karol, O'Connor, Huberman and Sweezy, Seers, and so on), all of which were clearly influential in shaping outside perceptions of Cuba. It also seems to ignore many of the European-based approaches, which have usually departed from the partisanship of US-based studies and often have the advantage of research based on easier access to Cuba itself.
Of the author's essential sympathies, we are left in little doubt. The energy of the implicit condemnation of US policy is clear, as is the tendency towards emotional empathy with the particularities and goals of the Cuban project, and the very fact of being prepared to argue an objective case for a socialist revolution, in a context where objectivity is rarely found, tells a story in itself. However, the effort is worthwhile, for the result is a welcome, if conceptually unremarkable, overview of a complex process, which does succeed in capturing many of those complexities. It should be said that it is unremarkable only in as much as it offers no new insights, nor is it based on new research; in other respects, however, it succeeds extremely well, not least with its thematic approach. Although occasionally grouping together somewhat uneasily related subjects (such as political culture, grouped perhaps inappropriately with art and culture, or the combination of emigration and internationalism, two dimensions that have little mutual relationship and which throw light on entirely different aspects of the whole process), this has the value of taking us away from a potentially simplistic chronological approach and the curse of oversimplified ‘periods’.
Some of the chapters are splendid. For example, the Revolution's pre-1959 roots are explained in an unusual mixture of necessary detail and perceptive overview, with most of the key elements addressed (only the Ortodoxos, now being somewhat rehabilitated in Cuba, are omitted), and little or none of the all-too-familiar ‘background’ sketchiness. Here, it seems, the author's historiographical training pays off in a capacity to summarise skilfully but astutely. The overview of the troubled US–Cuban relationship is also treated critically and comprehensively, with the eye of someone who clearly feels the subject perhaps more than a European might. Also, the decision to treat three decades of political evolution as one single theme works surprisingly well, even though it does gloss over some of the inner tensions, ideological arguments and external pressures which forced what Chomsky describes, perhaps a little misleadingly, as ‘experiments with socialism’. Indeed, the Cuban–Soviet relationship, which did so much to shape those years, is as a result somewhat downplayed in comparison to the US–Cuban relationship. Both, it is clear, were fundamental in affecting both internal and external patterns of behaviour and thinking, but this comes out less explicitly in this approach.
The final chapters are perhaps less well written. While the Special Period is approached with commendable honesty, detail and balance, the discussion of ‘Cuba into the 21st Century’ seems unnecessarily reliant on external perspectives, often provided by specialists who lack contact with the complex internal dynamics of the rethinking, tensions and debates which have characterised the post-1999 years. As a result, the ‘Battle of Ideas’ is largely ignored, in keeping with the judgments of some of those external perspectives, but to the neglect of a close appreciation of the tensions and challenges that made the patterns of a Raúl-led Cuba more necessary and perhaps even inevitable. Instead, the major challenges highlighted are human rights and internal dissent, whose raised profile after 2000 had as much to do with US strategy as with ‘organic’ structural development, and the elusive and highly contentious notion of ‘civil society’. That focus seems a curious one, given everything else going on in Cuba in the last decade or so: economic pressures, internal party debate, changing generations, and so on.
However, those weaknesses should not detract from what is a welcome, worthy and highly perceptive summary of the evolution of a process that is often baffling to outsiders, as well as to many Cubans on the island itself. It not only avoids many familiar pitfalls but shows a perceptive eye alongside the clear sympathy.
