Bonsal combines his memoirs of his experiences in Havana with an analysis of the relationship between Cuba and the United States both during the Batista and Castro regimes and during the earlier history of the Cuban Republic.His discussion of Castro's personality is incisive, portraying the Maximum Leader's increasing animosity toward the United States until the final break-off of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Bonsal's observations of Castro and the sociopolitical climate in Cuba are perhaps the most incisive and accurate of any to date on the subject.All the events from the Revolution to the termination of diplomatic relations are discussed. Of particular interest are Bonsal's accounts of his attempt to find a basis for a rational relationship between the United States and Castro's Revolution, the rejection of that attempt by Castro, and the abandonment by Washington of the policy of nonintervention in Cuban affairs which the Ambassador had advocated.Finally, in an evaluation of future relations between the two countries, Bonsal analyzes some of the major problems of the coming years.

There are few international relationships as intimate, as passionate-and as dysfunctional-as that of the United States and Cuba. In The Cuba Wars, Cuba expert Daniel Erikson draws on extensive visits and conversations with both Cuban government officials and opposition leaders-plus key players in Washington and Florida-to offer an unmatched portrait of a small country with outsized importance to Americans and American policy.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN HISTORY “Full of…lively insights and lucid prose” (The Wall Street Journal) an epic, sweeping history of Cuba and its complex ties to the United States—from before the arrival of Columbus to the present day—written by one of the world’s leading historians of Cuba. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued—through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country’s future. Meanwhile, politics in Washington—Barack Obama’s opening to the island, Donald Trump’s reversal of that policy, and the election of Joe Biden—have made the relationship between the two nations a subject of debate once more. Now, award-winning historian Ada Ferrer delivers an “important” (The Guardian) and moving chronicle that demands a new reckoning with both the island’s past and its relationship with the United States. Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba: An American History provides us with a front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation, with its dramatic record of conquest and colonization, of slavery and freedom, of independence and revolutions made and unmade. Along the way, Ferrer explores the sometimes surprising, often troubled intimacy between the two countries, documenting not only the influence of the United States on Cuba but also the many ways the island has been a recurring presence in US affairs. This is a story that will give Americans unexpected insights into the history of their own nation and, in so doing, help them imagine a new relationship with Cuba; “readers will close [this] fascinating book with a sense of hope” (The Economist). Filled with rousing stories and characters, and drawing on more than thirty years of research in Cuba, Spain, and the United States—as well as the author’s own extensive travel to the island over the same period—this is a stunning and monumental account like no other.

English texts of Castro's speeches given between Nov. 25, 1994 and April 30, 1996, which first appeared in the Cuban weekly Granma International.

Describes Castro's insurrection from a 1955 fund raising trip to the United States to the Cuban Revolution.

In the years since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, eleven men have served as president of the United States, arguably the most powerful nation on earth. Yet none of them has been able to effect any significant change in the stalemate between the United States and Cuba, its closest neighbor not to share a land border. Fifty Years of Revolution features contributions from an international Who's Who gallery of leading scholars. The volume adopts a uniquely nonpartisan attitude, a departure from this topic's generally divisive nature. Emerging from a series of meetings, conference panels, and lectures, the book coheres more strongly than the typical essay collection. Organized to analyze--not describe--Cuba’s foreign relations, the work examines sanctions, the embargo, regime change, Guantánamo, the exile community, and more. Drawing from personal experiences as well as recently declassified documents, these essays update, summarize, and explain one of the prickliest political issues in the Western Hemisphere today.

Contains interviews of July and Oct., 1974, with Castro.