Historia militar de Cuba desde 1492 a 1986. Escrita en ingl s.

This book is the first examination of the Cuban military in the context of Cuba's political and economic challenges in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR - and therefore of Soviet economic, political and psychological support. It provides important historical and political contexts of the development and engagement of the military.

Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern. Reliance on Soviet military methods, the poor civil-military relations of the Arab world, the underdevelopment of the Arab states, and patterns of behavior derived from the wider Arab culture, have all been suggested as the ultimate source of Arab military difficulties. Armies of Sand, Kenneth M. Pollack's powerful and riveting history of Arab armies from the end of World War Two to the present, assesses these differing explanations and isolates the most important causes. Over the course of the book, he examines the combat performance of fifteen Arab armies and air forces in virtually every Middle Eastern war, from the Jordanians and Syrians in 1948 to Hizballah in 2006 and the Iraqis and ISIS in 2014-2017. He then compares these experiences to the performance of the Argentine, Chadian, Chinese, Cuban, North Korean, and South Vietnamese armed forces in their own combat operations during the twentieth century. The book ultimately concludes that reliance on Soviet doctrine was more of a help than a hindrance to the Arabs. In contrast, politicization and underdevelopment were both important factors limiting Arab military effectiveness, but patterns of behavior derived from the dominant Arab culture was the most important factor of all. Pollack closes with a discussion of the rapid changes occurring across the Arab world-political, economic, and cultural-as well as the rapid evolution in war making as a result of the information revolution. He suggests that because both Arab society and warfare are changing, the problems that have bedeviled Arab armed forces in the past could dissipate or even vanish in the future, with potentially dramatic consequences for the Middle East military balance. Sweeping in its historical coverage and highly accessible, this will be the go-to reference for anyone interested in the history of warfare in the Middle East since 1945.

Essays in volume 18 include discussions of Cuba's approach to the Latin American debt crisis, its two-century-old race problem and its impact on Cuba's relations with Africa, differences between urban and rural living conditions and development, and the recent housing situation in Cuba. Examinations of scholarly research include a survey of major historical works on Cuba ofver the past twenty-five years and an analysis of how the revolution has affected the scholar's craft and access to manuscripts and archives. The Debate section features comments on discussions in Cuban Studies 17 of sex and gender relations in today's Cuba, as well as the ongoing issue of Cuba's economic planning and management system.

"Cuban Communism remains, like its previous ten editions, an important contribution to the field of Cuban Studies. It includes many useful chronological facts, as well as a selection of Fidel Castro's speeches which are interesting and informative for any reader interested in the island." -- Maria Gropas, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge This new 11th edition of a classic text, come to be known as "the bible of Cuban Studies," emphasizes two key issues of the twenty-first century. First, transition concerns in a world without Castro, and second, the continuing embargo of Cuba by the United States in the aftermath of a major change in the presidency. Cuban Communism has been updated to take account of changes in the 44 years of Castro's rule since seizing power in 1959. In addition to articles and essays that represent new developments in Cuba, the work boasts a database upgrade that makes it more important to students, scholars, and researchers. The volume has expanded the section on future prospects for civil society and democracy in a post-Castro environment; including "Regime Change in Cuba" by Eusebio Mujal-Leon and Joshua W. Busby; "Transition Scenarios" by Randolph H. Pherson, and "A Policy Conundrum over Cuba" by Edward Gonzalez. It also contains a chronology of events from 1959 through 2002. Finally, the new work contains a carefully constructed Who's Who of important players in Cuba and the regime during the Castro period up to the present. Other articles new to the 11th edition of Cuban Communism are by Ernesto Betancourt, "Cuba's Balance of Payment Gap"; Carmelo Mesa-Lago, "The Cuban Economy From 1999-2001"; Taylor Boas, "The Internet and U.S. Policy toward Cuba"; Aldo M. Leiva, "Environmental Technology Transfer and Foreign Investment"; Moises Asis, "Judaism in Cuba"; Wolf Grabendorff, "A View from the European Union." More than ever, it is a must volume for those interested in political systems and social structures. Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University. Among his works are Three Worlds of Development, Beyond Empire and Revolution, and his Bacardi Lectures on Cuba that was published as The Conscience of Worms and the Cowardice of Lions. Jaime Suchlicki is Bacardi Professor of History at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Miami, and executive director of its Cuban-American and Cuban Center. He is author of From Columbus to Castro, University Students and Revolution in Cuba, and Mexico: From Montezuma to Nafta and Beyond.

A thorough examination of the history of the controversial island country looks at little-known aspects of its past, from its pre-Columbian origins to the fate of its native peoples, complete with up-to-date information on Cuba's place in a post-Soviet world.