Without Fidel

From the award-winning reporter and go-to source on Cuban-Miami politics Ann Louise Bardach comes a riveting, eye-opening account of the last chapter in the life of Fidel Castro: his near death and marathon finale, his enemies and their fifty-year failed battle to eliminate him, and the carefully planned succession and early reign of his brother Raúl. Ann Louise Bardach offers a spellbinding chronicle of the Havana-Washington political showdown, drawing on nearly two decades of reporting and countless interviews with everyone from the Comandante himself, his co-ruler and brother Raúl, and other family members, to ordinary Cubans as well as officials and politicos in Miami, Havana, and Washington. The result is an unforgettable dual portrait of Fidel and Raúl Castro -- arguably the most successful and enduring political brother team in history. Since 1959, Fidel Castro has been the supreme leader of Cuba, deftly checkmating his foes, both from within and abroad; confronting eleven American presidents; and outfoxing dozens of assassination attempts, vanquished only by collapsing health. As night descends on Castro's extraordinary fifty-year reign, Miami, Havana, and Washington are abuzz with anxious questions: What led to the lightning-bolt purge of key Cuban officials in March 2009? Who will be Raúl's heir? Will the U.S. embargo end now? Bardach offers profound and surprising answers to these questions as she meticulously chronicles Castro's protracted farewell and assesses his transformative impact on the world stage and the complex legacy that will long outlive him. She reports from three distinct vantage points: In Miami, where more than one million Cubans have fled, she interviews scores of exiles including Castro's would-be assassins Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles; in Washington, DC, she reports on the Obama administration's struggle to formulate a post-Castro strategy; in Havanah she permeates the bubble around the fiercely private and officially retired Castro to ascertain the extent of his undisclosed medical condition. Bardach delivers a compelling meditation on one of the most controversial, combative, and charismatic rulers in history. Without Fidel includes never-before-published reporting on Castro, his family, and his half-century grip on the largest country in the Caribbean while assessing how his departure will forever transform politics and policy in the Western Hemisphere -- and the world.

Che Guevara has been dead for more than forty years, and long ago renounced by Fidel Castro-and yet they are forever linked: their coming to prominence together captivated a generation. For many, their romantic struggle for freedom still resonates; for others, they simply represent the last of a dying breed of rebel warriors. Yet, while much has been written about them both, surprisingly little is known about their personalities, and even less about the 12 years of their unique and highly consequential relationship, during which they linked arms in one of the world's greatest revolutionary movements. Fidel and Che follows them on their dramatic journey from the safe houses of Mexico's political underground in the 1950s, where they began hatching their plan for revolution, to the theatre of war in the Cuban mountains, to the paneled offices of a new government (the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile crises happened on their watch), and to the eventual rupture of their friendship, as Che left Cuba to pursue his revolutionary dreams, only to be assassinated by the CIA in 1966. Reid-Henry also reveals the more personal world of their inner lives as friends, husbands, lovers, fathers. What began as an association of convenience became the most profound relationship of their lives. It shaped their political ambitions and their personal attitudes, compelling them further than either had previously dared imagine. But if their times inspired a revolutionary friendship, they also destroyed it, for the tragic irony was that the more historical circumstance bound them together, the more personal ambitions pulled them apart. At a momentous turning point in Cuban history, Simon Reid-Henry has crafted a fascinating and original chronicle of two of the most powerful personalities in recent memory.

Fidel Castro had ruled the island of Cuba for fifty-two years when ill health forced him to step down in 2008. Over the course of that time, he changed Cuba from a republic to a communist state and became one of the most divisive leaders in the second half of the twentieth century. For some, he is a champion of humanitarianism, socialism, and environmentalism. For others, he is a monster and dictator who perpetuated human rights abuses at home and abroad. Providing a rare, evenhanded account of Castro’s life, journalist Nick Caistor brings together interviews with people who have known Castro with discussion of the ideas that drove him. Caistor follows Castro’s life from his birth as the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer in 1926 to the developing of his leftist, anti-imperialist ideas at the University of Havana and his primary role in the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. He explores Castro’s economic and military alliance with the Soviet Union and his hostile relationship with the United States while also looking at how he simultaneously introduced free health care and education while squelching freedom of the press and suppressing dissidents. As Caistor shows, Castro’s numerous writings on politics, capitalism, and other topics have influenced leaders from Nelson Mandela to Hugo Chávez, but allegations of corruption, human rights abuses, and dictatorship never ceased during his long career. Using stories and opinions to enliven the debate about Castro’s choices, strengths, and weaknesses, this concise biography gives readers the opportunity to judge for themselves how they feel about the former Cuban president.

Perhaps the foremost social analyst and journalist on Cuban affairs, Carlos Alberto Montaner has written a definitive study of the Cuban regime from the vantage point of the Cuban dictator. This is not simply a history of Cuban communism but rather a personal history of its leader, Fidel Castro. Montaner's extraordinary knowledge of the country and its politics prevents the work from becoming a psychiatric examination from afar. Indeed, what personal irrationalities exist are seen as built into the fabric of the regime itself, and not simply as a personality aberration.Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution is not an apologia for past United States involvement in Cuban affairs. The author is severe in his judgments of such participation. Nor is he sparing in his sense of the betrayal of the original purposes of the Revolution of 1959 manifested in the character and policies of Fidel Castro. As the work progresses from a study of the victims to a study of the beneficiaries of the Cuban Revolution, it leaves the reader with a deep sense of the tragedy of a revolution betrayed, but not one that could have easily been avoided.Montaner is an ""exile"" like the great Alexander Herzen before him. His decision to live in Europe was made by choice, not of necessity. He sees his role as critical analyst, not as restoring the status quo ante. A most valuable aspect of this book is its intimate reevaluation of Fulgencio Batista. Whatever the reader's judgment of Montaner's work, no one can read it and be dismissive of the effort. It is a work of intimacy even through written in exile--and hence must be viewed as an important effort to understand the character of the man and regime who have changed the course of Cuban history in our times.

This book analyzes the economic reforms and political adjustments that took place in Cuba during the era of Raúl Castro’s leadership and its immediate aftermath, the first year of his successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Faced with economic challenges and a political crisis of legitimacy now that the Castro brothers are no longer in power, the Cuban Revolution finds itself at another critical juncture, confronted with the loss of Latin American allies and a more hostile and implacable US administration.

The author of this book takes a highly original approach to understanding the past three decades of Cuban history–he offers an analysis and interpretation of the prolific writings and speeches of Fidel Castro and of numerous interviews with him. Through Castro’s own words, Sheldon Liss examines the evolution of the Cuban leader’s political and soci

Cuba has suffered a lot, but it is not because of Fidel Castro. It is true that things could have been different but longing for the non-existent is a weakness and not a strength. The strength lies in accepting reality and facing it, and that is what the Cuban people did when faced with the dilemma of being one more colony of the United States in the American continent as is, for example, Puerto Rico. God and history gave Cuba, my dear Cuba, the leaders it deserved for a very decisive period of its recent history. Commander Fidel was above all, a Thinker, and like all those who think, he was often wrong. Perhaps Cuba's greatest success and the glory of its Revolution has been precisely the rise of that people and nation, the rise of their cultural and intellectual level, nationalism, which will prepare them to defend for many generations their independence, their wealth and thus create prosperity for all. At least, that is the version of a great majority but, for its critics, there will always remain the echo of the word dictatorship which, on the ground, is the only state and the survival option of the Cuban regime in its state of cold war and blockade for almost a century. Fidel Castro Ruz was a great man, a man of the world, who presented to the world the soul of the Cuban people, and it is better to keep that, because we are all memories and points and data in history, just that. Thank you for reading these lines Javier Clemente Engonga, 13.07.2021