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
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A timely, spirited collection.
A compendium of feminist perspectives.
Essayist, memoirist, and fiction writer Gay represents the history, scope, and challenges of feminism in a judicious selection of 65 pieces, some written by iconic feminist writers (bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Susan B. Anthony), others by collectives, and still others by lesser-known voices. Citing “dynamism” as her guiding principle, Gay has chosen works that are articulate, diverse, and hard-hitting. “I believe there is a feminist canon,” Gay writes, “one that is subjective and always evolving, but also representative of a long, rich tradition of feminist scholarship.” The pieces are grouped into eight thematic sections. Foundational texts include a statement of guiding principles for the 2017 Women’s March; early feminist texts begin with 16th-century scholar Henricus Cornelius Agrippa’s defense of women’s superiority and includes Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Anthony’s argument for women’s right to vote. Other well-known pieces include Judy Brady’s wry “I Want a Wife,” a 1970 essay reprinted in the first issue of Ms. magazine; Rebecca Solnit’s “Men Explain Things to Me”; and Gloria Steinem’s “If Men Could Menstruate.” There are also fresh surprises: “The Woman-Identified Woman,” a manifesto written by six women calling themselves Radicalesbians, argues that lesbianism is central to feminist politics “as an identity of political, cultural, and erotic resistance to patriarchy.” In “Girl,” novelist Alexander Chee reflects on gender fluidity, remembering being mistaken for a girl when he was growing up and revealing the beauty he finds when he puts on drag. With its capacious perspective, the collection speaks to a range of feminist concerns, past, present, and future. As Gay notes, “women’s bodies, movements, and choices are contingent on the whims of men in power. We have made progress but we are not yet free.”
A timely, spirited collection.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780143110392
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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