United States-Cuban Relations

Most experts would agree that Cuba's relationship with the United States during the last fifty years is probably the least understood aspect of contemporary Cuban history. Placing the relationship in historical context, Morales and Prevost provide a most useful and necessary overview of the origins and development of the relationship, which helps the reader understand the complexities, subtleties, and realities that have characterized U.S.-Cuba relations from Thomas Jefferson to George W. Bush. This highly readable, concise, and perceptive work of this most complex relationship is also timely, as the Cuban Revolution turns fifty, facing a sea of challenges, doubts, and uncertainties. Morales and Prevost must be commended for producing what is likely to become a standard for the study of U.S.-Cuba relations. -- Felix Masud-Piloto, DePaul University
Most Americans view Cuba as being almost providentially assigned to the US orbit, and thus view relations between the two nations since the onset of the Cuban Revolution as an aberration instead of a culmination. This slim, well-written volume will do a lot to dispel that notion....This work is especially strong in providing a new framework for understanding relations. It is also very strong in detailing relations since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and the onset of the 'special period.' ...Recommended. * CHOICE, February 2009 *
This is a most readable account of U.S.-Cuban relations since 1959, i.e., of continuing U.S. efforts to dominate the island and of Cuba?s to thwart those efforts. The authors make the very useful point that U.S. policy cannot be explained simply as a device to assure the support of the Cuban-American community?a community which, in any event, is coming to have growing doubts about that policy. Rather, it has to do with a mind-set stretching back into early American history: that is, that in the rightful order of things, Cuba ought to be controlled by the United States. In that same context, the authors note that the neo-cons around Bush 'consider the continuation of the socialist project in Cuba to be an affront to their plans for U.S. global hegemony.' And thus, even though the Cold War is over, Bush?s policy toward Cuba has become even more threatening. Disappointed that Castro?s illness and semi-retirement did not result in serious discontent and perhaps even in regime overthrow, the neo-cons, according to the authors, are hoping his death will at last give them that prize. More likely, it will be their ultimate disappointment. -- Wayne S. Smith, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (1979–1982)
This is a most readable account of U.S.-Cuban relations since 1959, i.e., of continuing U.S. efforts to dominate the island and of Cuba’s to thwart those efforts. The authors make the very useful point that U.S. policy cannot be explained simply as a device to assure the support of the Cuban-American community–a community which, in any event, is coming to have growing doubts about that policy. Rather, it has to do with a mind-set stretching back into early American history: that is, that in the rightful order of things, Cuba ought to be controlled by the United States. In that same context, the authors note that the neo-cons around Bush 'consider the continuation of the socialist project in Cuba to be an affront to their plans for U.S. global hegemony.' And thus, even though the Cold War is over, Bush’s policy toward Cuba has become even more threatening. Disappointed that Castro’s illness and semi-retirement did not result in serious discontent and perhaps even in regime overthrow, the neo-cons, according to the authors, are hoping his death will at last give them that prize. More likely, it will be their ultimate disappointment. -- Wayne S. Smith, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (1979–1982)