|
Editorial Review Product Description
This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses's fast-paced narrative takes the reader from Cuba's first steps to assist Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65--where 100 Cubans led by Che Guevara clashed with 1,000 mercenaries controlled by the CIA--and, finally, to the dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, which stopped the South African advance on Luanda and doomed Henry Kissinger's major covert operation there. Based on unprecedented archival research and firsthand interviews in virtually all of the countries involved--Gleijeses was even able to gain extensive access to closed Cuban archives--this comprehensive and balanced work sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations. It revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, challenges conventional U.S. beliefs about the influence of the Soviet Union in directing Cuba's actions in Africa, and provides, for the first time ever, a look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War. ... Read more Customer Reviews (19) 
Gleijeses 5 stars!!
Perhaps the least known event in Cold War history, the Cuban endeavors in Africa provide a startling contrast to the commonly accepted bipolar world of American and Soviet foreign policy. In this exhaustively researched and brilliantly narrated 2002 Robert Ferrell prize-winning study, Piero Gleijeses of John Hopkins University explores Cuban agency and support of African political movements at the onset of decolonization.
Gleijeses argues that Cuba went into Africa on its own initiative, despite the long- held belief by scholars that actions were directed from Moscow. By reflecting the ways Castro's foreign policy decisions differed with the USSR's, he demonstrates a different set of goals. He asserts that Castro's actions in Africa (as those of Latin America) arose from an identification with Third World political movements and symbolized a form of solidarity. Instead of bettering national interests, he claims this sense of solidarity manifested early on in support of the Algerian NLF even though it strained the Cuban relationship with France who supported the early Castro regime, and resulted in the cancellation of important Cuban sugar trade agreements with Morocco. Likewise, by participating in Angola, Cuba lost a massive contract for a West German development program. Despite Soviet reluctance to pour substantial aid and training into Guinea-Bissau and Angola, Cuban leaders tapped into their scant resources to offer support. Gleijeses also argues that Cuban plans for creating a social revolutionary alliance in Africa were initially unrealistic. He proves his case by highlighting Cuba's naive focus on fighting in Zaire, subsequently straining relationships with Tanzania who was preoccupied with domestic disturbances in Dar es Salaam, and reflected in Guevara's pessimistic reflections of Congolese soldiers' ideological convictions. Therefore, after Mobutu's successful campaign against Cuban supported-Simba forces, Cuban leaders came to the conclusion that Africa was "not ready" for socialist revolution.
Gleijeses makes some major contributions to Cold War historiography through his exploration of new sources. Despite the absence of Angolan archives, he draws on Cuban, US, British, German Federal Republic, German Democratic Republic, Belgian, and Russian state archives, all of which expand understandings of the Angolan Civil War and demonstrate the value of Belgian, West German, and East German archives in understanding the deeper context of the Cold War. By using interviews to describe the sense of solidarity felt by Cuban leaders toward the African states as a prime motivator for Cuban Cold War support and mobilization, he avoids possible mistakes in his own interpretations of the history by only discussing those of the actual actors.
One of the Castro regime's revolutionary themes in the 1960's and 1970's was the spread of socialist revolutions throughout the Third World. The Cuban government had supported the FLN in Algeria since before the 1959 revolution, and, under Castro, continued in the form of weapons, medical personnel, and Cuban troops sent to defend in an October 1963 Moroccan border incursion. The result was the creation of a Cuban intelligence network linking Latin America focos, or leftist guerrilla movements, with Africa via Algeria. From 1963 through 1967, this support network of focos expanded into Tanganyika, Mozambique, Congo-Brazzaville, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau, in an attempt to create alliances among African guerrilla movements and to prop up socialist regimes. Despite Cuban successes enjoyed in Algeria and Guinea Bissau, a CIA sponsored mercenary offensive helped lead to the defeat of Cuban-backed Simba forces in the Congo in 1965, undermining the Cuban project in Africa.
After the collapse of the Portuguese empire in 1974 Castro focused on support to the Angolan FMLA. Despite the earlier defeat of Simba forces in the Congo which signified Moscow's decreasing involvement in Africa, Cuba continued to station advisors in Guinea, Egypt, Tanzania, Guinea-Bissau, Algeria, and Mali, throughout the 1960's and 1970's. Castro's request for Moscow's support was denied But not dissuaded, Cuba dispatched 30,000 troops to Angola and successfully defended against a South African military incursion from November 1975 through March 1976. After the initial success, Moscow changed its reluctant stance toward Cuban actions in Angola and celebrated the Cuban intervention. While Cuban actions in Africa would enjoy future success and failure continuing until their withdrawal in 1989, the situation in March of 1976 reflected the apex of Communist Cuba's influence in Africa.
While a generally good read with strong arguments and tons of new source material, one of Gleijeses' major arguments puts too much stress on Cuban ideological convictions. Despite understandable empathy felt by the Cuban government toward the newly independent African states, he attributes undue credit to these ideological convictions while not delving into other reasons for Cuban activity in Africa. While he mentions the potential for Cuban leverage against the Soviet bloc, he does not discuss the importance of African resources to the Cuban economy, nor how such commitments to Africa may have stemmed from an attempt to resist over reliance on Soviet aid. Nor does he have sources that allow him to sufficiently explore the domestic significance of Castro's actions. However, due to the lack of information and the refusal of the Castro brothers to agree to an interview with him, the author is forced to veer away from these questions and focus on ideological causes. Despite lacking deeper assessments of the Cuban venture, the book shines new light on Communist Cuba in Africa and should be recommended to any Cold War history enthusiast interested in these seldom discussed events.
adam reller
[...]
great awsome for all LA historians
i first read this book when i was 17 or 16.It was awesome.I studied it twice. As a historical document, it shows the truth of what went down there.The bibliography provides a great deal of sources, which I used and tells you which ones are bias or not.This indeed is the way LA history must be written: unbiased record.
essential.
the role of cuba in africa, and it's participation in africa's anti-colonial revolutions is described with details and documented facts in this book. this is the "bible" on this subject.
Thoroughly enlightening and readable history
This is an amazing account of a little-understood chapter of cold war history. Gleijeses has given us an extremely readable, compelling, and meticulously researched volume that shines a light on two decades of conflict between a global superpower and a young revolutionary government. I have enjoyed this book immensely.
Interesting, biased, but worth looking at
I didn't have the taste to finish this book, but I did read parts and I plan to keep it around as a nice reference. That is because while it is interesting and pretty well researched it is biased to the point of distortion. Facts become selective, motivations imagined, omissions crucial.
On the other hand, the pro-Cuba bias in this book, while often heard on the internet and among certain pseudo-intellectual circles, is rarely presented in such a readable scholarly fashion. Also, the rare access that the author had makes the book valuable for just that point.
In short, the book is very well made, but restrained by its status as a pro-Cuba polemic. Still even those without the pro-Cuba view (such as myself) can find it very interesting and useful, even if not worth reading end to end.
... Read more
|
