Literature, History, and the Lost Republic Rafael Rojas’s <em>Essays in Cuban Intellectual History</em>
Keywords
Cuban REvolution, post-socialism, Cold War, Rafael Rojas
Keywords
Cuban REvolution, post-socialism, Cold War, Rafael Rojas
Abstract
To say that Cuban history presents unusual challenges may be an understatement. A sequence of colonial, republican, socialist and postsocialist regimes awaits unifying narratives, a succession of radical changes that could threaten the survival of any nation, perhaps even more so in the case of a Caribbean island. The degree of difficulty only deepens when one takes on board the symbolic role seized by the Cuban Revolution during the Cold War, an event that turned that nation’s history into a story involving all of the Americas, if not the world, a proximity to the here and now that only heightens the need for nuance and rigor. Multiple and contentious views abound for readers and writers, not only in the scholarly realm, but also in the arena occupied by living witnesses who claim their own form of authority. Few thinkers really attempt this task in a comprehensive way.
Published
2011-01-01
Section
Debates