Cuba Today and Tomorrow is a careful, thoroughly documented, and wide-ranging analysis of landmark events in Cuba and its international relations in the 1990s. The fact-filled journey begins with the collapse of the Soviet system and the disturbing social dislocations of adjustment in Cuba, including a resurgence of prostitution; moves on to the economic and political reforms that enabled survival and then recuperation; and explores Cuban-U.S. relations during the Clinton administration, Cuba's outreach to the reordered world, and Pope John Paul II's visit to the island in 1998. Azicri distinguishes between domestic and external “environments,” and his “underlying theme” is “that Cuba is undergoing another radical social transformation under the revolution, different from what was experienced before” (p. 5). This radical transformation is “reinventing” Cuban socialism. A more away from the “total socialism” of previous Cuban strategy (and dreams) “is not a matter of choice” (p. 5), but other choices matter in the reinvention of socialism in Cuba.

Azicri catalogs the increasingly well-known reforms of the 1990s, all of which serve three objectives: “to resist and overcome economic collapse, to safeguard the socialist system, and to integrate the country into the world economy” (p. 304). Economic reforms reflect capitalist adjustments to Cuba's economic model, ranging from legalization of dollars and self-employment to new fiscal policies, the opening to foreign investment, and free trade zones. Obdurate problems of development—and socialist development—persist, but the policy achievements (and failures) of previous decades explain mid-decade recovery as well as the potential for successful reinsertion in the global economy (p. 129). Which paradigm Cuba will pursue as it leaves behind the “total socialist” model is not yet clear (p. 175), and Azicri advises an expansion of private entrepreneurial space as well as renewed state control of the social programs (p. 175) that temper the pernicious combination of scarcity, tourism, and new inequalities, in order to reaffirm the egalitarian commitments of Cuban socialism.

The political reforms of the 1990s are more modest, among them the revision in 1992 of 77 articles of the Cuban constitution, the acceptance of “believers” as party members, and the inauguration of direct elections for provincial and national representatives. Azicri explains that democratic centralism has been redefined (p. 114), and he warns that typical questions about representative democracy are not “germane to the organic structure of a socialist political system” (pp. 121–122). He identifies two crucial issues within the single-party system: expanding the base of the party and ensuring that its role is one of policymaking, not implementation (p. 122). “Sensible electoral and political reform would reinforce the system as a socialist democracy, while increasing its political legitimacy at home and especially abroad” (p. 128).

The dynamics of reform in Cuba are contextualized in Azicri's discussion of the complexities of finding allies and friends in the postsocialist world, of UN deliberations on human rights and U.S. wrongs, and of the Pope's historic visit. Tensions between Cuba and the United States figure prominently in the external environment, including the unprecedented legislative aggression of the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act and the Helms-Burton sequel enacted after the two-planes incident in 1996. Although thorny issues of dissent, democracy, and development are indeed caught up in the interplay of Cuban exiles' actions, U.S. domestic politics, and official foreign policies that have harmed Cuba, Azicri advises that “most problems on the island should not be blamed on Washington” (p. 296) and “the reform process must continue uninterrupted regardless of hostile U.S. policies” (p. 307). Azicri recommends that the reinvention of socialism continue with a further opening to resurgent Catholic/Christian values. These would provide an ideal moral and ethical antidote for the “creeping materialism” associated with economic reform and would foster political reform by pluralizing official ideology and the ideational foundations of everyday life (pp. 304–5).

Azicri does not engage in debates about how to study Cuba and does not forge his argument in opposition to others' interpretations. He writes with regard to the nature and outcomes of reform: It “is in the detail more than at the macro level that the nature of things is defined” (p. 305). Indeed, much is quite familiar in the Cuba that Azicri presents, including his assumptions about Castro's leadership. “Power is personalized in him,” and Cuba's political culture—a “civil (secular) religion”—is Castro's (p. 302). Less familiar, however, are the many claims for the achievements of the revolution—its strength and resilience, for example, or the “inventive policy making, grassroots ingenuity, and vital national character resources” that aided survival in the special period (pp. 19, 7). Azicri also focuses with uncommon respect on the refinements of Marxist theory in Cuba in the 1990s, and although he is ecumenical in the sources he uses and drives the study with detail rather than a framework, his conclusions advocate the dialectical method. In daring to take seriously the possibility of a better and still-socialist “tomorrow,” Azicri problematizes Cuba and what we are willing to see and know about it. He may leave some important details out of focus, including Afrocubans and their religious orientations, but his contribution to renewed debate is timely, intelligent, and welcomed.