Imperial State and Revolution: The United States and Cuba, 1952-1986

by Morris H. Morley

Overview

The United States played a decisive role in Cuba's political and economic development during the first half of the twentieth century. The emergence in the 1950s of a broad-based opposition movement to the Batista dictatorship was viewed by American policy makers as a threat to American interests. The paramount concern of the Eisenhower administration was to deny political power to the Castro forces, a goal pursued by all means short of direct military intervention. Subsequently, American policy toward Cuba, as Morris Morley shows in this book, has focused on reasserting US influence over the island. Drawing on personal interviews, classified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and other primary sources, this study presents the most comprehensive analysis to date of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations' efforts to isolate Cuba politically within Latin America and economically throughout the capitalist world. During the Nixon, Ford, and Carter presidencies, as Morley shows, the global economic blockade unraveled, as did Cuba's political pariah status in Latin America. The book also traces the responses of the US Congress and the American business community to White House policy in the 1970s. In the epilogue, Morley discusses the Reagan administration's antagonistic policies toward Havana, which recalls the policies, rhetoric, and instrumentalities displayed by Washington during the early 1960s.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521357623
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/29/1988
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	584
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 8.98(h) x 1.42(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; 1. The US imperial state: theory and historical setting; 2. The United States in Cuba 1952–1958: policymaking and capitalist interests; 3. The United States in Cuba 1959–1961: national-social revolution, state transformation, and the limits of imperial power; 4. The United States against Cuba 1961–1968: politics of confrontation in Latin America; 5. The United States against Cuba 1961–1980: intransigent policymaking and its consequences; 7. The US imperial state: some final insights; Epilogue; Appendix; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

A turgid, overly documented, dissertation-like book that casts U.S./Cuban relations in terms of bad guy capitalist against good guy reformer. There are few new insights, but some recently available State Department documents make for interesting reading. The theoretical framework of the book is that the ``Imperial State'' struggles blindly to impose its will on independent states who refuse to remain satellites. Absent is any sympathy for justifiable alarm at the presence of a hostile neighbor. Readers will be better served by Tad Szulc's Fidel (LJ 1/87) for the meaning of the Cuban Revolution, and by Wayne Smith's The Closest of Enemies ( LJ 3/1/87) for understanding U.S. response. Nicholas P. Cushner, Empire State Coll., SUNY, Buffalo

Library Journal