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Review
| Cuba Libre: A Brief History of Cuba, by Paul J. Dosal. Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson (Global History Series), 2006. 152 pages. $14.95, paper.
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| The task of writing a concise fresh and eloquent narrative of Cuban history for beginners presents a challenge that would daunt and probably depress most historians. However, in this volume, which is one in a series dedicated to nations that have had a profound impact on global history, Paul J. Dosal accomplishes the nearly impossible. Dosal has both personal ties to his subject, being fourth-generation Cuban-American, and impressive professional expertise with a specialty in Central American history, but because he is not Cuban, he is able to avoid the partisanship and downright prejudice which sinks most books on this inflammatory subject. Cuba Libre centers on two critical questions that make it ideal for classroom use and debate: first, how could such a small country have played an oversized role in world history for over five-hundred-years; and second, what defines the essence of Cubanidad (Cubaness). What is it that makes Cuba and the Cubans unique? The piquant answers provided by the author make this book invaluable for undergraduate courses on Latin America, the Third World, and global civilization since 1492. |
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Dosal asserts that Cuba's geopolitical and historical importance comes from the island serving as a microcosm, both real and symbolic, of the historic path of most nations brought under the heel of Europe (and later, the United States) from the Age of Conquest until today. Colonization was followed by decolonization and then by an alleged independence that masked genuine dependence—frequent military interventions, an economy burdened by monoculture and foreign domination of resources, and finally, a government that maneuvered dangerously between the superpowers during the Cold War. All these elements make Cuba the perfect mirror with which to highlight other Third World nations suffering from similar predicaments, ranging from Indonesia to Iraq. Yet Cuba is also special in that it managed to produce two outstanding statesmen who overcame the parochial vision of most Third World nationalists, and cast the struggle for Cuban independence in ways the peoples of Latin America, Africa, and Asia could empathize with and support. These were José Martí in the nineteenth century and Fidel Castro in the twentieth. Both took Cuba's quest for freedom as a herald of what humanity could become. Martí's motto of Cubanidad, "a nation with all, for all," was translated by Castro after the revolution 1959 into a new Cuban nationalism that was simultaneously internationalist, a nationalism that forged strong bonds between the Caribbean island and other revolutionaries in the underdeveloped world. |
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Dosal has chosen to write a Martí-centric history of Cuba, as opposed to the Castro-centric version found in most textbooks on the subject. "The Apostle," as he is known in Cuba, envisioned a nation embodying social and racial democracy, free from all foreign puppeteers. Judging to what degree that vision has come true is the crux of Dosal's critique of Cuban history from Columbus to Castro. The enormous contributions of Afro-Cubans to the nation's development in everything from music and poetry to producing the sugar crop that keeps the island economically alive, along with the fact that Blacks have been excluded from major political posts, even under Castro, is highlighted by Dosal. This makes his book ideal for a course in the expanding and explosive field of Afro-Latin history and courses on the "Black Atlantic" because many historians have begun to question the shibboleth of the "one-drop rule" of dichtonomic racism in North America versus a putative multicultural Latin America. Using this book could, for example, aid students in debating whether race relations are better or worse in the socialist republic of Cuba than in the capitalist, developed United States. |
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I have only two bones to pick with this exemplary text: one thematic, the other methodological. A synthesis of Cuban history built around José Martí is more problematical than the author is willing to acknowledge, because "The Apostle" was a far more contradictory and controversial figure than the one-dimensional man presented here. Martí championed civil rights for blacks but not, strictu sensu, racial equality. He believed Afro-Cubans had to be educated to a much higher degree before they could be considered civilized. This did not make him so much a racist, but a typical Latin American intellectual of his generation. Further, in organizing his book into chapters neatly demarcated by timelines, such as "First Republic," "Second Republic,' and "Revolution," Dosal gives the false impression that Cuban history followed a progressive line of march, moving ever closer to Martí's ideals. Yet Cuba could have taken many different turns after gaining independence, from annexation by the United States to what whites greatly feared, a black-dominated republic. Students must not close this book thinking that anything in history is inevitable, a point on which Martí and Castro would agree. |
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| Kent State University, Kent, Ohio |
Julio Pino |
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