IMPORTANT NEW BOOK:

Cuban Revolution in America: Havana and the Making of a United States Left, 1968–1992
by Teishan A. Latner
University of North Carolina Press, 2020

[Publication date: February 1, 2020]

Cuba's grassroots revolution prevailed on America's doorstep in 1959, fueling intense interest within the multiracial American Left even as it provoked a backlash from the U.S. political establishment. In this groundbreaking book, historian Teishan A. Latner contends that in the era of decolonization, the Vietnam War, and Black Power, socialist Cuba claimed center stage for a generation of Americans who looked to the insurgent Third World for inspiration and political theory. As Americans studied the island's achievements in education, health care, and economic redistribution, Cubans in turn looked to U.S. leftists as collaborators in the global battle against inequality and allies in the nation's Cold War struggle with Washington. By forging ties with organizations such as the Venceremos Brigade, the Black Panther Party, and the Cuban American students of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, and by providing political asylum to activists such as Assata Shakur, Cuba became a durable global influence on the U.S. Left.

Drawing from extensive archival and oral history research and declassified FBI and CIA documents, this is the first multidecade examination of the encounter between the Cuban Revolution and the U.S. Left after 1959. By analyzing Cuba's multifaceted impact on American radicalism, Latner contributes to a growing body of scholarship that has globalized the study of U.S. social justice movements.

REVIEWS:

An excellent new book on left- wing activists, the complex politics of solidarity, and US- Cuban relations. . . . This is a book of many strengths and stories. Latner includes an expansive and eclectic cast of characters, from predominantly white leftists and black nationalists to progressive Cuban Americans and even airplane hijackers. . . . Overall, Cuban Revolution in America provides new insights into the expected and unexpected circuits of travel.--Labor

A critical contribution to scholarship on the global Cold War and the postwar internationalist left. . . Latner's text offers crucial insights about the world in which we live as well as illuminating lessons from past attempts to change it.--Public Books

Teishan Latner's fascinating Cuban Revolution in America, with its focus on histories of travel, hijacking, and exile across Cold War barriers, is an important intellectual weapon against both the [travel] ban and the blockade.--Labour/Le Travail

Latner's book joins a growing body of work on trans-national political influences relating to the Cuban Revolution.--American Historical Review

An important contribution to our understanding of both U.S.-Cuban relations and the way in which the island nation influenced dissident movements within its larger neighbor." --E-International Relations

A vivid portrait of youth who aspired to change the United States by way of Cuba. . . . Rich with new material, well-written, and engaging, with a sometimes sly humor and consistent accessibility.--NACLA Report on the Americas

An outstanding piece of scholarship that merits a book prize.--Journal of American History

[A] groundbreaking book on a quarter century of interaction between the Cuban Revolution and US radicals.--The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture

Scholars of the left should consider this required reading. It is these multiple lefts, white, Latinx, and African American, that Latner explores over twenty-five plus years, arguing that Cuba was the biggest global inspiration for a new generation of activists who shunned the Old Left for the new.--American Communist History

An impressive, compelling work of research and analysis . . . an unusually deep and nuanced study.--H-Net Reviews

Latner provides a unique vantage on how Cuban internationalism shaped the desires and visions of a generation of revolutionaries in the U.S. From activist brigades to hijackers and political exilees, the book offers an absorbing account of the place of Cuba in the U.S. radical imaginary.--Sujatha Fernandes, author of Cuba Represent!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Teishan A. Latner is assistant professor of history at Thomas Jefferson University.

NOTE:  This post can also now be found here at the Panopticon Review On Facebook page.