Cuba: A New History by Richard Gott (review)

Book Reviews 167 for elite growth at the hands of Wall Street’s “Dance of Millions.” In Nicaragua the beneficial effects of this fiscal policy differed across the peasant population with access to political resources. However, on the whole Gobat shows how the agrarian and wage labor populations fared better than local elites during times of US imperial involvement. Culture and religion are also described as prevalent forms of US influence leading to altered if not diminished elite authority. Gobat stresses that social change is not just being undertaken on political and public levels but also in the homes of the elite. Photographs , first-hand accounts, and personal artifacts areused to demonstrate the cultural revolution of elite women that lead to greater female autonomy and lessened male dominance. This again was not the “model” of America many elite men wanted to reproduce, adding further depth to Gobat’s critique of US influence on elite power. Additional problems for elites arose during religious disputes as radical factions struggled for power. These confrontations led to fractures in political bodies that rippled throughout the socio-political spectrum, including male social clubs. This latter point altered means for elite authority by restricting access to Nicaragua’s most prestigious clubs on heritage, ethnicity, or personal beliefs. On the whole I believe the book provides essential knowledge for historians of Latin American and US foreign involvement . Gobat accurately portrays the varying effects of foreign political, economic, and military influence that can allow for indepth comparative analyses across other regions of the world. In so doing this book can give broader viewpoints to sociologists and anthropologists interested in social change. Even practitioners of political science will find this book useful with its thorough analyses of the complex effects of US foreign policy on elite economic and political sectors. Nathan G. Johnson International Development, Iowa State University Cuba: A New History. By Richard Gott. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005, p.384, $35.00. In Cuba: A New History, Richard Gott set himself the Herculean task of writing almost 500years of Cuban history in a mere 384 pages. This is a gargantuan objective but, in short, Gott does 168 The Latin Americanist Fall 2006 an excellentjob of this. He not only organizes his book in an easy to follow chronological order but also uses his vast personal experience of Latin America andjournalistic past to produce an engaging and easily readable account of Cuban history.At a price of $35 this represents good value for anyone interested in the island’s history. Gott writes an excellentaccount of the colonialperiod during which he proposes the idea that Cuba’s indigenous Indian population may have survived in the more remote areas of the island for longer than has been traditionally thought. In addition to this, he also pays great detail to the social makeup of the island. He does this, not just with the actual numbers, but also details how each individual sector of Cuban society arrived on the island. Moreover , he comments on the importance and significanceof this once the United States became more heavily involved in the island. In regards to the situation in Cuba in the middle of the twentieth century, Gott devotes time to analyze the importance of the urban side of the guerrilla war. In addition, he continues to quote some excellent figures for the social makeup of the island at this time. These important aspects in Cuban history often receive little attention. In the same manner the author also highlights the fact that diplomatic relations existed between Cuba and the Soviet Union in the early 1950s.This rarely receives scholarly attention, made all the more remarkable since Andrei Gromyko, a future Soviet Minister for ForeignAffairs, was the Soviet representative to the island during this time. In conjunction with his attention to detail of the social composition of the island, Gott writes a good and detailed account of Cuba’s African adventures of the 1970s. However, what is noticeable is that for the period after 1959,the attention given to the social composition of the island disappears and is only commented upon once: a quote from Carlos Franqui in the footnotes (p.347). This is...