<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Tropical stalinism
Review: Carlos Alberto Montaner re-explores the history of Cuba in the last half century, with particular attention on the present period. He does this filled with his own feelings as a Cuban exile, yet he does not become subjective, and offers views and opinions without imposing them. The book is filled with passion, with anecdotes, with feelings, and is guaranteed to be of immense interest to anyone studying Cuba or just interested in Cuba. Indeed, it is one of those books that are at the same time a pseudo-academic or journalistic study, but also a novel-style book (a novel which, in the case of Cuba, is sadly true).
Rating: 
Summary: Another great hit by one of Cuba's (exiled) top writers
Review: Carlos Alberto Montaner re-explores the history of Cuba in the last half century, with particular attention on the present period. He does this filled with his own feelings as a Cuban exile, yet he does not become subjective, and offers views and opinions without imposing them. The book is filled with passion, with anecdotes, with feelings, and is guaranteed to be of immense interest to anyone studying Cuba or just interested in Cuba. Indeed, it is one of those books that are at the same time a pseudo-academic or journalistic study, but also a novel-style book (a novel which, in the case of Cuba, is sadly true).
Rating:
Summary: cuban history 101
Review: Mr. Montaner belongs to the "innocent" generation, that is to say, those of us who were born too late to contribute to the catastrophe of 1952 and too early to join the Anti-Batista fight.
In this little jewel of a book, the author shows tremendous maturity in keeping it fair, not allowing himself to sin on the side of fanatical anti-Castro bias. Indeed, this is a remarkable unbiased account of the so called Castro's Revolution, as well as a good synopsis of Cuban history from the XIXth century to our days.
Well researched (except on the African adventure of the Cuban dictator) well written and generally fun to read, this book is a must to all those that have an interest in the Cuban phenomenon and totalitarian regimes in general.
Rating:
Summary: cuban history 101
Review: Mr. Montaner belongs to the "innocent" generation, that is to say, those of us who were born too late to contribute to the catastrophe of 1952 and too early to join the Anti-Batista fight.
In this little jewel of a book, the author shows tremendous maturity in keeping it fair, not allowing himself to sin on the side of fanatical anti-Castro bias. Indeed, this is a remarkable unbiased account of the so called Castro's Revolution, as well as a good synopsis of Cuban history from the XIXth century to our days.
Well researched (except on the African adventure of the Cuban dictator) well written and generally fun to read, this book is a must to all those that have an interest in the Cuban phenomenon and totalitarian regimes in general.
Rating:
Summary: Tropical stalinism
Review: This is a fine book, only suffering from one major defect: the author is unable to say - or, at least, ignores the question... - when Fidel became a communist. About this point, I should recommend the reading of Nathaniel Weyl's classic "Red Star Over Cuba": in 1948, during the "Bogotazo" evenments in Colombia, considering the documents apprehended by the colombian police, Castro already was a "komintern" agent, a fact that also contradicts Montaner's assertion that USSR had not any role in the process that led to the overthrown of Batista's regime. Really, the main revolutionaries like Castro brothers - Fidel and Raul - and "Che" Guevara were all convinced communists controled by the afore mentioned country.Despite this defect, the book is really good and clearly shows the disastrous effects of communist dictatorship, exercised in the purest stalinist way, over Cuba. Carlos Alberto Montaner completely debunks the immense ammount of propagandistic lies spread by the cuban regime, proving that: 1º) The economical collapse actually suffered by Cuba is totally owed to the failure of the ortodox marxist central planning economics followed by the cuban communist party, giving no place to free enterprise and private property; not to the so-called american blockade, far away from that; 2º) Health care in Cuba, excluding hospitals to party's nomenklaturists and foreigners, has the worst quality possible: the lack of common medicaments is generalized and many hospitals, even, have not sheets to put on their patients' beds...; 3º) Education is completely submited to a strict ideological rigidity, not fulfiling the main target of any educational system: learn to think; 4º) Cuba currently has the lowest quality of life in the entire american continent, after Haiti and Nicaragua; in 1959, it was one of the three most developed latin american countries... Read also Carlos Alberto Montaner's "Guide To The Perfect Latin American Idiot" and Armando Valladares's impressive "Against All Hope".
<< 1 >>
|
