Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Seven Threads in the Labyrinth -- Part I: Idealism, 1952-1970 -- 1. History Will Absolve Me: The Rebellion, 1952-1958 -- The Mulatto Overseer -- Castro, the Moncada Attack, and the 26 of July Movement -- The Granma Expedition and the Santiago Revolt -- The Sierra and the Llano -- Violence Escalates -- The Regime Unravels -- Was Cuba Ripe for Revolution? Was a Revolution Necessary? -- 2. Fatherland or Death!: Setting the Revolution's Foundations, 1959-1962 -- Guerrillas in Power -- The Colossal Neighbor to the North -- Demise of the Moderates and Rise of the Fidelista Communists -- Mass Organizations and Social Goals -- Revolution and Culture -- Marching toward Socialism against the Backdrop of the Cold War -- The Opposition: Flight or Fight -- Storm over the Bay of Pigs -- Mongoose to Missiles -- The Economy Falters -- A Balance Sheet, 1959-62 -- 3. The Ten Million Will Happen: Expanding Socialism, 1963-1970 -- Recession and the Sugar Gamble -- Conflicting Partners, Contending Models, Competing Voices -- Revolutionary Internationalism -- Sino-Guevarism without China and without Guevara -- Homophobia, "Out of the Game" Poets, and Revolutionary Art -- Still Only Ninety Miles Apart? -- "Sucropsychosis" and the Ten-Million-Ton Harvest -- The First Decade on Balance -- Part II: Personalistic Institutionalization, 1971-1990 -- 4. We Must Turn the Setback into Victory: Sovietization, Institutionalization, and the Expanding Cuban Diaspora, 1971-1985 -- Sovietization of the Economy -- Political Institutionalization -- Persistent Repression and the Emergence of Dissent -- Cuba as an International Power -- The Cuba Outside Cuba -- The Mass Exodus of El Mariel -- Still in Revolution?.

5. Now We Are Going to Build Socialism: Crisis and Rectification, 1986-1990 -- Between the Cold War and a New World Order -- Economic Recession -- Rectification of Errors -- Political Purges and Pseudo Glasnost -- Part III: Survival, 1991-2013 -- 6. Socialism or Death!: The Long Special Period, 1991-2000 -- The Onset of the Special Period -- The State Confronts the Crisis: Structural Reforms -- From Embargo to Blockade? -- No es fácil: Cubans Endure the Special Period -- The Counter-Plantation: Dissidence, Jineterismo, and Cultural Transgression -- "So near and yet so foreign": The Ongoing Havana-Washington-Miami Drama -- The Cuban Diaspora Revisited -- Survival at Any Cost, but at What Price? -- 7. This Revolution Can Destroy Itself: Cuba at the Dawn of the New Millennium, 2001-2011 -- Cuba and the World -- The Lingering Little Cold War -- The Domestic Economy -- Closed for Repairs -- El Comandante in His Labyrinth -- The Interregnum -- Raúl Castro's Beans and Cannons Rule -- Twenty-First-Century Mambises -- Cuba in Transition? -- 8. Rectify and Change . . . All That Should Be Rectified and Changed: Transitions, Elections, and Successions, 2011-2013 -- Sixth PCC Congress and the Lineamientos of 2011 -- Five Key Elections within Six Months -- The Blog Heard around the World -- Conclusion: Rewinding the Threads in the Labyrinth -- The Pendular Revolution -- The Art of Triangulation -- The Longest Ninety Miles -- The Revolution's Third Man -- The Persistent Plantation -- An Island on Horseback -- Many Cubas -- Epilogue: You Are My Friend -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

This is the first book in more than three decades to offer a complete and chronological history of revolutionary Cuba, including the years of rebellion that led to the revolution. Beginning with Batista's coup in 1952, which catalyzed the rebels, and bringing the reader to the present-day transformations initiated by Raúl Castro, Luis Martínez-Fernández provides a balanced interpretive synthesis of the major topics of contemporary Cuban history. Expertly weaving the myriad historic, social, and political forces that shaped the island nation during this period, Martínez-Fernández examines the circumstances that allowed the revolution to consolidate in the early 1960s, the Soviet influence throughout the latter part of the Cold War, and the struggle to survive the catastrophic Special Period of the 1990s after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. He tackles the island's chronic dependence on sugar production, which started with the plantations centuries ago and continues to shape culture and society. He analyzes the revolutionary pendulum that continues to swing between idealism and pragmatism, focusing on its effects on the everyday lives of the Cuban people, and-bucking established trends in Cuban scholarship-Martínez-Fernández systematically integrates the Cuban diaspora into the larger discourse of the revolution. Concise, well written, and accessible, this book is an indispensable survey of the history and themes of the socialist revolution that forever changed Cuba and the world.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.