Cuba: From Conquistador to Castro

In 1898, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Cuba, the author argues, laid the basis for America's exploitive control of the Cuban economy, which lasted until 1959, when Fidel Castro overthrew the CIA-backed military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. In a provocative chronicle, Simons (Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam) calls attention to a 1995 U.N.-sponsored conference in Copenhagen that highlighted Cuba as a positive example of a developing society because of its egalitarian redistribution of income and land, investment in social services and elimination of malnutrition and illiteracy. While most readers will find Simons's defense of Castro's ""progressive democratization"" utterly unconvincing, the author counters that critics of Cuba's human rights abuses are hypocritical in the face of a crippling 35-year U.S.-led economic blockade plus U.S.-sponsored terrorism, military invasion and repeated CIA assassination attempts on Castro. (Feb.)