HIST 149
The 1959 Cuban Revolution: Precedents, Processes, and Legacies, 1898-2009 Fall 2009
Division II Writing Skills
Cross-listed AFR 149 / HIST 149
This is not the current course catalog

Few events shaped world politics during the second half of the twentieth century as profoundly as the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Transformed by the leadership of Fidel Castro into a socialist country battling U.S. intervention, Cuba embodied the anti-imperialist aspirations of generations of Latin Americans whose economies and political destinies remained firmly bound to the policy goals of the United States. Cubans who lived the Revolution, however, differed in their reactions to it: while many celebrated the social impact of Cuba’s revolution, many others condemned the revolutionary state as nothing more than a repressive (albeit populist) dictatorship. Exploring the precedents, processes, and legacies of the Cuban Revolution during the year of its fiftieth anniversary (2009), this course will give students a better understanding of how and why the Cuban state has endured for so long in the face of U.S. hostility. We will read historical monographs, speeches by revolutionary leaders, and testimonies of Cubans living during the 20th century to access these themes. And while the course will begin in 1898 with the Cuban wars for independence, it will end in the present and explore the meaning of President Obama’s closure of U.S. prison camps in Guantanamo and the transition from Fidel to Raul (and beyond) to try and answer the question that is on the minds of most Cubans and scholars of Cuban history: What next?