Cuba : what everyone needs to know PDF
Preview Cuba : what everyone needs to know
CUBA WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW® ALSO BY JULIA E. SWEIG Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti- American Century CUBA WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW® JULIA E. SWEIG THIRD EDITION 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. “What Everyone Needs to Know” is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978–0–19–062036–3 (hbk.) ISBN 978– 0– 19– 062037– 0 (pbk.) 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by R.R. Donnelley, United States of America CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XV FOREWORD XVII INTRODUCTION XXI Cuba before 1959 What were the main features of Cuban life during Spanish colonial rule? 1 How did Cuba’s independence movement gain momentum and what was its relationship to abolition? 4 Who was José Martí? 6 How did Cuba’s final war for independence begin? 7 Why did the United States intervene and how did the Cuban War of Independence come to be known as the Spanish- American War? 8 What kind of independence did Cuba gain and what was the Platt Amendment? 10 What were the early years of Cuban independence like and how did the Platt Amendment impact Cuba’s political culture? 12 Why does the United States have a naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba? 14 What was the political climate out of which Fulgencio Batista first emerged? 15 vi Contents How did Cuban politics and U.S.-C uban relations evolve between 1934 and 1952? 16 What were the origins of the Cuban Revolution? How did it succeed? 20 What role did women play in the Cuban insurrection? 27 How did race relations figure into Cuba’s political development during the prerevolutionary period? 29 Beyond the realms of politics and economics, how closely intertwined had Cuban and American culture become by the 1950s? 33 The Cuban Revolution and the Cold War, 1959– 91 DOMESTIC 35 Why did the Batista regime collapse? 35 What was so special about Fidel Castro? 35 What did the Communist Party have to do with it all and were the Soviets involved? 36 After Fidel took power, what happened to the other revolutionary groups? 38 What did Che Guevara do after 1959? 38 What did the first revolutionary cabinet look like? 39 Was Castro really a Communist? 40 So, did communism mean no democracy? 42 How did the revolution organize Cuban society? 44 Why did Cubans start leaving for exile? 46 What kind of backlash was there to the revolution’s radicalization? 47 What kind of benefits did the revolution deliver and to whom? 49 How did race factor into the equation? 52 In a notoriously patriarchal society, how did women fare under the revolution? 54 What kind of space did the regime allow for intellectuals and artists? 55 How did the regime deal with its adversaries in the exile community? 58 Contents vii How did the revolution handle religion? 61 Why did the revolution make such a big deal out of sports? 64 What about Cuba’s human rights record during this period? 65 Why did King Sugar continue to dominate Cuba’s economy after the revolution? 68 What were the main economic features of Cuba’s integration with the Soviet bloc? 69 What was “rectification”? How did Fidel and Raúl Castro view the prospect of market reforms in the 1980s? 70 Who was General Arnaldo Ochoa and why was he executed? 72 U.S.- CUBA 74 Was there ever a chance that the United States would react well to the Cuban revolutionaries? 74 How much weight did U.S. economic interests have in driving the two countries apart? 75 What really happened when Castro visited Washington in 1959? 77 Why did the Bay of Pigs invasion fail? 78 After the invasion fiasco, did the United States continue covert operations against Cuba and how did the United States involve Cuban exiles? 82 What was the Cuban Missile Crisis? 84 How did U.S. attempts to overthrow Castro play inside of Cuba? 86 What was the scope of U.S. economic sanctions? 87 How successful was the United States in isolating Cuba in the 1960s and into the 1970s? 89 What’s the story behind the Kissinger/ Ford secret diplomacy with Cuba in 1974? 91 How did Jimmy Carter’s administration approach Cuba? 92 What was the Mariel boatlift? 95 Why did Reagan toughen up U.S. policy toward Cuba? 98 What did Reagan do to crack down on Cuba? 99 Who was Jorge Mas Canosa? 100 How did the Cuban American National Foundation emerge? 101 What is Radio Martí? 102 viii Contents CUBA IN THE WORLD 104 Why did Fidel, Che, and the other revolutionaries think they would succeed in spreading revolution in the third world? 104 What were the basic objectives of the Cuban Revolution’s foreign policy? 105 Where was Cuba’s foreign policy focused during the early years of the revolution and how did Che Guevara fit into the mix? 107 How did Latin American governments react to Cuba’s armed internationalism? 112 How did Cuba’s presence in southern Africa evolve? 113 What was Cuba’s role in the Horn of Africa and the Ethiopia/ Somalia conflict? 115 How did Cuba’s foreign policy in the Middle East evolve? 117 How did world events shape Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet Union? 119 What were the key features of Cuba’s involvement in Central America and the Caribbean in the 1980s? 122 The Cuban Revolution after the Cold War, 1991–2 006 DOMESTIC 125 How did the collapse of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet bloc affect Cuba? 125 How did Cuba adapt at home to the loss of Soviet subsidies and global realignment brought by the Cold War’s end? 126 Why didn’t the regime collapse? 128 What were the regime’s economic reforms and why were they so limited? 130 What kind of foreign investment began in Cuba, what consequences did this investment bring to the island, and how did authorities respond? 133 Did Cuba attempt to emulate any other economic models in this period? 137 Contents ix How did artists manage to pull off such a cultural boom in the 1990s? 139 What caused the 1994 balsero refugee crisis? 141 How did the Cuban health care system fare in this period? 142 How did Cuba cope with HIV/A IDS? 145 How did human rights fare more generally during this period? 147 What was the Varela Project and what is its significance? 149 What kind of space did the regime permit for intellectuals, especially those involved in debates over economic reform? 152 How did space for organized religion evolve during this period? 153 Who was Elián González and what was his significance to Cuba and U.S.-C uban relations? 156 How did the Elián González affair influence Cuba’s domestic politics? 158 Does Cuban art and music provide an arena and space for critical expression? 160 U.S.- CUBA 161 How did the United States react to the end of the Soviet era in Cuba? 161 What was the Cuban Democracy Act, who was behind it, and what did the law intend to accomplish? 162 How did the United States and Cuba resolve the 1994 refugee crisis? 164 How did Cuban American activists and members of Congress react to these agreements? 166 Was a broader U.S. opening toward Cuba in the cards? 167 What was Brothers to the Rescue, and why did Cuba shoot down two of its planes? 169 How did the United States respond? 171 How did Cuba respond to Helms- Burton? 173 After the dust settled from the shoot-d own and Helms-Burton, how did Cuba policy take shape during Bill Clinton’s second term? 174 How did the death of Jorge Mas Canosa affect the Cuban American community? 177
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