Cuban Memory Wars - (Envisioning Cuba) by Michael J Bustamante

About the Book

"For many Cubans, Fidel Castro's Revolution represented deliverance from a legacy of inequality and national disappointment. For others--especially those exiled in the United States--Cuba's turn to socialism made the prerevolutionary period look like paradise lost. Michael J. Bustamante unsettles this familiar schism by excavating Cubans' contested memories of the Revolution's roots and results over its first twenty years"--

Book Synopsis

For many Cubans, Fidel Castro's Revolution represented deliverance from a legacy of inequality and national disappointment. For others--especially those exiled in the United States--Cuba's turn to socialism made the prerevolutionary period look like paradise lost. Michael J. Bustamante unsettles this familiar schism by excavating Cubans' contested memories of the Revolution's roots and results over its first twenty years. Cubans' battles over the past, he argues, not only defied simple political divisions; they also helped shape the course of Cuban history itself. As the Revolution unfolded, the struggle over historical memory was triangulated among revolutionary leaders in Havana, expatriate organizations in Miami, and average Cuban citizens. All Cubans leveraged the past in individual ways, but personal memories also collided with the Cuban state's efforts to institutionalize a singular version of the Revolution's story.

Drawing on troves of archival materials, including visual media, Bustamante tracks the process of what he calls retrospective politics across the Florida Straits. In doing so, he drives Cuban history beyond the polarized vision seemingly set in stone today and raises the prospect of a more inclusive national narrative.

Review Quotes

"Cuban Memory Wars provides a valuable contribution to the study of Cuban and exile politics and the uses of history. It's engagingly written and should promote lively discussions in classes in public history and historiography as well as in Cuban, Latino, and Latin American studies."--Hispanic American Historical Review

"An excellent comprehensive study of the politics and battle for memory and history in the first 20 years of the Cuban Revolution (1959 to 1979), both within the island and in the exile community that materialized predominantly in the United States. Analyzing the communities both within and outside Cuba is to be applauded, as many works tend to concentrate on one exclusively."--New West Indian Guide

"Bustamante eloquently shows that neither the hardline camps in Miami nor Havana have really accomplished what they publicly proclaim to seek: Cuba is still a one-party authoritarian state, the US trade embargo remains in place, and any sort of reconciliation remains a distant dream. Bustamante . . . implores the reader to abandon the selective memories that plague both sides and create a new and fuller path that leads them out of the muddy memory trenches and towards a brighter future for all."--Cold War History

"In this readable work, Bustamante successfully highlights the diversity of opinion on and off the island, demonstrating the limitations of popular stereotypes. The macro-history he tells is well-known to cubanólogo, but his framing of the 1959-79 period recovers stories that are too-often obscured by the construction of political narratives."--NACLA