The title of this book plays on the US government's accusation that Cuba was fomenting revolution throughout Latin America. ‘This accusation was meant to justify US Cuba policy and every covert and overt act of aggression against the smaller nation’, explains Margaret Randall (p. 90). The author challenges this view by celebrating revolutionary Cuba's international impact in diverse arenas: artistic, military, educational and medical. The multidimensional perspective on Cuba's global solidarity, and the inclusion of the literary arts, is a distinct contribution of this book. Another aspect is the personal approach. Randall's presence is felt behind every chapter but she also gives over space to Cuban protagonists, internationalists who have become writers, to speak about Cuba's global contribution. Randall acknowledges that she has ‘approached internationalism through poetry's door. Partly because I am a poet, of course’ (p. 128).

As a poet and writer, Randall has had plenty of the gritty life experiences credited with fuelling creativity. Born in New York in 1936, Randall moved to Mexico in 1960. After the 1968 student rebellion, she ‘suffered a crippling repression, was forced into hiding, and sent my four small children to [Cuba]’, for their own safety. Her youngest was a baby of just three months. ‘But I had confidence in Cuba's sensibility and ability to care for my son and daughters, and that confidence was more than justified’ (p. 88). After joining them some months later, she stayed in Cuba for the next 11 years. In 1980 she moved to Nicaragua, where the Sandinistas had established a revolutionary government. Randall and her family personally benefitted from the generosity and solidarity of the Cuban Revolution, which gave them a home, society, education and healthcare at no cost. She also witnessed the Cuban contribution in Nicaragua.

Beyond the personal, Randall experienced the cultural, ideological and political nurturing of the values of internationalism in revolutionary Cuba. In 1974 she stood among a million Cubans in Revolution Square when Fidel Castro announced the decision to send Cuban troops to Angola:

The catalyst, however, for this book comes from her profession; whilst working on a bilingual poetry anthology, Randall noticed the impact Cuban writers and artists had upon their contemporaries in other countries. And this is where the journey starts.

Thus Randall starts with the regional impact of Cuban artists in a chapter entitled ‘Talent and Influence beyond Numbers’, referring to poetry and literature, installation and performance art, photography, film and dance. This is a particularly interesting discussion for readers who have not thought beyond Cuba's international military, educational and health interventions. She interweaves a narrative about how the revolution invested in and nurtured those areas, how cultural houses have been opened in every Cuban city and town, how Fidel rejected the downgrading of culture for the masses, committing instead to raise the cultural level of the entire population. She also points to obstacles and challenges: censorship from outside Cuba, the US blockade and the lack of materials, how the need for unity impacted on artist expression. ‘Cuba fought the US cultural blockade with the same tenacity it fought its diplomatic and economic counterparts. It established important cultural institutions, hosted conferences and symposiums and invited intellectuals and artists from around the world to visit the island, and supported its own creative minds’ (p. 26). The penultimate chapter makes a similar evaluation of Cuban sports.

The interceding chapters focus on the more recognised forms of Cuban internationalism, divided by region (mainly Africa and Latin America) and type (health and education). The organisation of the narrative is, perhaps, more of a poet's approach than a social scientist's, but the material is rich and interesting. There won't be much new substance for those knowledgeable about Cuban internationalism. The main features of this story are covered: how Cuba first sent doctors abroad in 1963 to Algeria. How the ‘Yes, I can’ (Sí, se puede) literacy programme was developed, was implemented in 2000 in Haiti and has now benefited some 1.5 million people. How its development in Venezuela led to the formation of Operation Miracle to restore eyesight for those with reversible blindness. How the sacrifice of Cuban volunteer soldiers held back the South African apartheid invasion in Namibia and Angola, and helped liberate Africa from colonial rule. There are accounts of the indispensable role of Cuban healthcare workers following the earthquakes in Kashmir, Haiti and Ecuador and fighting Ebola in West Africa, and so on. However, there is an underlying humanity to Randall's text which lends it power. Three separate chapters consist mainly of the writings of three Cuban internationalists who took up the pen as a result of their missions: Emilio, a soldier in Angola; Nancy, who taught physiology for two years in Ethiopia; and Laidi, a doctor for two years in Zambia.

There is also a useful historical account of the reality in health and education in 1950s Cuba, the challenges faced by the new revolutionary government, measures taken and subsequent achievements. This includes the process of introducing national, free public healthcare and education systems. Importantly, Randall identifies the cultural element of post-1959 Cuban internationalism and its impact on national consciousness: ‘The Revolution institutionalised generosity and shaped it as solidarity, naming it a collective value and national characteristic capable of bringing aid and hope to people in places too numerous to list’ (p. 108).

Today, around one in ten Cubans has participated in some form of internationalist mission: exporting the gains of the Cuban revolution. Randall points out that ‘Cuba has never pretended aid while establishing beachheads of geopolitical control or launched exploitative industries that siphon off a nation's natural resources while local people provide cheap labour and the profits revert to foreign coffers’. She concludes that Cuba's contribution to the global community over half a century ‘demonstrates a new paradigm of solidarity’ (p. 209).

However, there are other aspects which are under-examined by Randall but essential to this paradigm – the political economy of socialism, the politics of anti-imperialism, the planned nature of the economy. Nonetheless, Randall has made an energetic contribution and we are grateful.