Customer Reviews

The Cuban Way: Capitalism, Communism and Confrontation

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"The Cuban Way" is perhaps the best resource for easily understanding the confusing state of the Cuban economy (and politics and society, for that matter). I have studied the Cuban situation for many years, have read many books and articles on the subject, and authored a few publications of my own, and nothing I have come across on the subject is better. I also run a consulting company about trade with Cuba, Giraldilla.com, and I am constantly referring clients who want an accessible, thorough overview to this book. Through an excellent combination of clear explanation, helpful charts and graphs, and personal anecdotes, the author paints a broad, a comprehensive picture that is full of detail, but not overwhealming or too technical. Jatar-Hausman performs a great service to the Cuba expert and the Cuba curious alike.

The Cuban Way (by Ana Julia Jatar-Hausman, Kumarian Press) is an essential read for anyone going to the island for more than just a few hours of sun. Most contemporary books tackling current events in Cuba have been either so rabidly anti-Castro or so hopelessly fawning, that few have captured the current mood of Cuba. Jatar-Hausman captures the feelings of everyday Cubans in her analysis of their island's political direction. It's heavy reading - but vital if you want to fully understand today's Cuba.

This book mixes little snapshots of individuals' lives in Cuba after the bottom fell out of the Cuban economy in 93-94 with statistical data to provide a good mix of hard facts and real-life experiences. This post 1994 look is important in that it realizes that the Cuban economy is not going to simply collapse any time soon and that Castro and the rest of the Cuban government figures will likely be around for a while.

The book gives equal weight to the history of Cuba and today's Cuba while managing to show that the country is not simply a product of its history. The different anecdotes about moonlighting psychiatrists and frustrated economists bring the points to a more visceral level.

The mix of statistics in the form of charts and graphs and real world experience blends together into a readable, cohesive look at the Cuba of today. I definitely recommend this book to whoever wishes to learn a little more about the Cuba of today.

(From Planeta Journal) - Get to know the Cubans! Combining professional and personal journies, author Ana Julia Jatar-Hausman returns to the island of her birth -- specifically to the hotel her grandfather operated until it was appropriated by the government for housing. The author deftly explores the complex,chaotic and appealing culture of the Cubans. She provides descriptive portraits of the newly self-employed, from meat vendors to owners of small restaurants (paladars). This book, subtitled "Capitalism, Communisim and Conforntation," is as much about people as it is about policy. Surveys and illustrations document the changing roles of sugar and tourism in the economy as well as a profile of the rise and fall of the fiscal deficit. Excellent!

Between the anecdotes and the hard, cold facts, Jatar-Hausman provides a fascinating, accurate and comprehensive view of the post-Cold War Cuban economy and how it affects the life of the individual Cuban.

I enjoy reading Ana Julia Jatar and I had great hopes for this book but I was disappointed.

In the Preface Ana Julia warns us about the shortcomings of all previous writing about Castro's Cuba calling it variously:

"[H]ighly technical and scholarly or tainted with biases that distort the picture. This is particularly true in Washington, where I have lived for the past four years. The tendency is to oversimplify the debates about Latin America in general, and Cuba in particular. A highly polarized ideological environment has limited the possibilities for unbiased analysis by substituting the need to understand with the desire to score political points. The categories are simple dichotomies: pro or against the embargo; pro or against Fidel; left or right; right or wrong."

With such an introduction you expect an accurate description and analysis of the "real" Cuba. Ana Julia took the ideology out of the debate, did not give a particularly vivid description of life on the island despite her attempt at "human interest" via sound bites of anonymous Cubans, and the end result is bland. I should also mention that the book could have been better edited to remove a lot tedious repetition specially towards the end.

The book's saving grace is a fair -- if bland -- description of life in Cuba which should be interesting to those who are not familiar with Cuba or Latin America. Specially interesting is the last chapter about the "Long-distance Civil War." But since Ana Julia has left out ideology, she failed to mention that this is not a war between good and evil but a war between two evils: socialism, which is inherently evil, and rapacious capitalism, which is an evil aberration of capitalism.

A book review is not the place to argue ideology and I have to thank amazon.com for adding a comments section where I will note my thoughts about the ideological issues afflicting Cuba.

This is a book I' d like to read and review, perhaps in a review article including other economic books on Cuban affairs that I have listed. These include some by Perez-Lopez and a forthcoming reedition of Guerilla Prince, which I hope to receive either in a readable format by e-mail or as a courtesy of the eds.

Prof (econ) Claes Croner EcoLingua 11727 Stockholm Sweden