A strong, left-leaning history of the U.S. government’s long-standing vendetta against Cuba.
A book-length essay on the history of Cuba-U.S. relations.
On a visit to Havana, Prashad received a book from famed Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez to deliver to Prashad’s friend and fellow scholar Chomsky. The gift sparked a conversation between Prashad and Chomsky, co-authors of The Withdrawal, which they transcribed and edited to create this book. Despite the general title, the text mostly focuses on Cuban resistance to U.S. aggression. “We cannot think of another case like this in world history,” they write, “of a small country practically engulfed by the world’s most powerful state, which is trying to destroy it, yet managed to survive—and not only survive but succeed in many ways.” With a population smaller than that of greater New York City, Cuba’s status as “a threat to be contained” feels disproportionate to its size. Additionally, its enviable health and education outcomes, as well as its intervention in struggles like those against apartheid South Africa, ought to position Cuba as a model of morality, rather than as an enemy. One of the main sources of the U.S. government’s animosity toward Cuba lies in the island’s refusal to fall in line with American economic interests, an impressive feat for such a tiny, underresourced country. The authors back their well-formed argument about the disturbing tone of U.S. aggression toward Cuba with little-known primary-source documents and extensive statistics about Cuba’s contributions to the globe and, in particular, the global South. At times, the writers sugarcoat Cuba’s flaws—e.g., dismissing the island’s homophobic history and the negative consequences of Fidel Castro’s narcissism. While disappointing, this lack of nuance is not enough to override the authors’ central argument, as they clearly demonstrate “the suffocation that the United States has tried to implement against Cuba.”
A strong, left-leaning history of the U.S. government’s long-standing vendetta against Cuba.Pub Date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781620978573
Page Count: 208
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.
In the first volume of his presidential memoir, Obama recounts the hard path to the White House.
In this long, often surprisingly candid narrative, Obama depicts a callow youth spent playing basketball and “getting loaded,” his early reading of difficult authors serving as a way to impress coed classmates. (“As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless,” he admits.) Yet seriousness did come to him in time and, with it, the conviction that America could live up to its stated aspirations. His early political role as an Illinois state senator, itself an unlikely victory, was not big enough to contain Obama’s early ambition, nor was his term as U.S. Senator. Only the presidency would do, a path he painstakingly carved out, vote by vote and speech by careful speech. As he writes, “By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low.” The author speaks freely about the many obstacles of the race—not just the question of race and racism itself, but also the rise, with “potent disruptor” Sarah Palin, of a know-nothingism that would manifest itself in an obdurate, ideologically driven Republican legislature. Not to mention the meddlings of Donald Trump, who turns up in this volume for his idiotic “birther” campaign while simultaneously fishing for a contract to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House lawn. A born moderate, Obama allows that he might not have been ideological enough in the face of Mitch McConnell, whose primary concern was then “clawing [his] way back to power.” Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the book, as smoothly written as his previous books, is Obama’s cleareyed scene-setting for how the political landscape would become so fractured—surely a topic he’ll expand on in the next volume.
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6316-9
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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IN THE NEWS
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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