I approach “Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment” with two vital questions: 1) Is this book accessible and helpful to those without an academic background, and 2) can we trust Samuel Farber, the author, to be our guide and teacher in this endeavor to understand Cuba’s past and present?
Read MoreMy fear is that we are beginning to experience another phase of the history of this city. The “socialist” city (mediocre and boring) is giving way to another city whose “brand” is precisely the metropolitan situation that was denied for five decades – with its glamor, mysteries and nights of sequins and sex.
Read MoreThe battle of big capital to regain what was lost with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution began from the very first day of January 1959.
Read MoreLast week, Esther, a friend of mine for years, received news that was the best that any ordinary Cuban can hope to get. She then gave me a big hug, one that was as if we hadn’t seen each other in years. She cried, laughed, and was finally left speechless.
Read MoreThe problem is not simply to produce more, but how to achieve this and for whose benefit. Producing more, regardless of the way this is done, could result in returning land to those who have the money, skills and resources to expand production: US companies and property owners of the past.
Read MoreThe Death of Cuban prisoner Wilman Villar put us reporters in a dilemma that, while not new, is more dramatic: that of finding out where the truth lies in the midst of a web of political statements coming from both sides.
Read MoreI have to say that this might sound unbelievable, but I assure you that it’s 100 percent true. Some time ago, I started experiencing a strange anxiety every time I had to go to a store (one that sells goods in hard currency).
Read MoreIf you wish well for the Cuban people, especially the middle class, you have no choice but to like Raul Castro’s new economics under his revolutionary reform plan.
Read MoreWilman Villar has left us another tragic example that freedom, as Manuel Azaña once said, doesn’t simply free people – it makes them human. There is very little information available about Villar’s case, and what does exist is very confusing (as always occurs in systems where information is a privilege and not a right).
Read MoreOne consequence of the Special Period crisis in Cuba was the creation of a dual currency. For the government, this currency proxy separates the direct exchange value of the Cuban domestic peso from the US dollar.
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