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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Unique Book About Cuba,
By Dr. Joseph M. Zayas (Pensacola, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cuba in Revolution: Escape from a Lost Paradise (Hardcover)
This is one of the most important and informative books on the Cuban Revolution. To my knowledge, it is the first time that the story of the 13th Of March Revolutionary Directorate's role in the struggle against the Batista regime has been told. For anyone seeking to better understand the nature of Fidel Castro's Communist dictatorship, this book is absolutely essential. The personal account of the author's escape from Castro's tyranny was especially riveting. It is a well written, sobering book.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Escape from the Caribbean's Hellhole,
By
This review is from: Cuba in Revolution: Escape from a Lost Paradise (Hardcover)
Dr. Miquel Faria tells two related stories in "Cuba in Revolution." He regales with a concise history of pre-Castro Cuba and gives an autobiographic account of his family's life in the communist state and their escape to America. Both aspects make for a fascinating read, because beyond his own story he provides a insightful glimpse into Cuba's abject totalitarianism and also digresses at times to expound interestingly upon some secondary topics and simultaneously offer a few caveats. The historic summary will prove useful to those unfamiliar with Cuba's impressive past and its sad decline. Keeping track of the many players he discusses may be taxing at times, but wherever applicable he tells how these characters' paths overlapped his own family's. Despite the plentiful cast, he does give an adequate overview of 20th century Cuba. Far more engaging is the narration of his own family. Their journey to freedom cries out to be made into a movie. The story of bravery, intrigue, and adventure set against an exotic backdrop would certainly be popular with a vast audience. Sadly, as he ostensibly acknowledges such a film will never be made because Hollywood's hotshots have long been enamored with Fidel Castro. Doctor Faria suitably excoriates Tinsel Town's current loudest mouth Michael Moore and a few other plastic celebrities as well as the media elites who have toadied for Castro for decades; "they are well aware of the direful straits the Cuban situation is mired in. Yet the problem is that deep inside they admire Fidel." So blinded are many of these voices by their regard for communism's last remaining relic, that they willingly occlude the obvious realities of Castro's horrors. As Dr. Faria laments, "only occasionally will news and information about the [extreme] violation of civil rights in Cuba and the persecution of dissidents break the wall of the American media's self-imposed censorship and expose the abuses and the utter brutality of Castro's communist regime." Cuba's location a mere 90 miles from U.S. soil makes the situation all the more [horrible]. Occasionally the text diverges, but the tangential anecdotes often are directly related to the American situation today. Proponents of gun control will be angered by an inconvenient detail he relates from Cuba's past. Under Batista's leadership, firearm licensing began, and when Castro's agents initiated gun confiscation, Dr Faria observes, "they had a well-drawn blueprint to follow, the local firearm registration lists Batista had established." No section of this book is as necessary or as heartbreaking as his exploration of the Elian Gonzalez saga. Castro's sycophants in the media, academia, et. al. have hurled every scurrilous accusation imaginable at the heroic Gonzales family in Miami to protect their communist god, Dr. Faria's only agenda is the truth. He mentions the abundant (but conveniently ignored) documentation that Elian's s father knew of and supported the child's planned escape. He talks of the infamous abuse Elian received from one of his grandmothers and explains that it may have been a a satanic rite common in Cuba. He mentions how the INS and the Justice Department initially vowed to help Elian stay with his loving relatives but curiously reversed themselves when reportedly Castro [taunted] Clinton with another dump of Cuban prisons on American shores. Clinton has long blamed his one gubernatorial loss on his agreement to house some Cubans in the late seventies and has held Cubans in contempt ever since his one electoral [loss]. Dr. Faria strengthens his nearly airtight case with quotes from the doctors who were treating Elian. His Miami pediatrician futilely wrote to Janet Reno testifying to the loving treatment the Gonzalezes were providing, adding "it would be detrimental to take Elian away from the physically and emotionally stable environment that he has been part of for the past four and a half months." An independently hired psychologist who evaluated the child told ABC news that "taking Elian away from his Miami family only months after losing his mother would put him through a second ... trauma." The only doctors who advocated the child's return to a life of slavery for government appointed mouthpieces who never met with him--likely they were parroting the script [government] officials had written. How sad that such an occurrence happened in America--not Cuba He also talks about the leash Castro kept on Elian's father the entire time he was in the United States. He had to leave one of his other children and his mother behind. Controversially, Dr. Faria asks how fit a parent Elian's father was if he allowed the machine-gun wielding thugs to kidnap his child from their loving home when he wouldn't even venture there himself to try and talk with the family. Sadly the mountain of evidence he puts forth will likely be ignored by those who chose to distort the tragic situation while it was in progress. A frighteningly large number of movers and shakers overlooked the travesty, even the raid that prostituted America into lawlessness and totalitarianism however briefly. When Elian was sent back, the usual suspects talked about how much better off he would be, but as Dr, Faria acknowledges of the island prison "the government elite have access to the best food, housing, health care, and education, ordinary Cubans spend their lives standing in line for government rations." Such conditions do not matter to those who eschew reality. While any exploration of this heartbreaking case is very, very sad, "Cuba in Revolution" is in many other ways an uplifting read. Dr. Faria's appreciation of the opportunities in America (pre- and post- Clinton years) is heightened by his exposure to Cuba's horrors. As I write this review, the news media is obsessed with Iraq's liberation. Similarities between Saddam Hussein's and Fidel Castro's reigns are disturbingly plentiful. Additionally, Castro has taken advantage of this mono-coverage to [get tough] on dissidents in his country. Hopefully it won't be long before the world watches a statue of Fidel smashed into smithereens by a newly freed Cuban populace.
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