Customer Reviews

Guantánamo: A Working-Class History between Empire and Revolution (American Crossroads)

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This history of the American military base on Cuban soil shows how we arrived at the strange situation that is Guantanamo today. It explains what it means for the U.S. to maintain a military presence in a country with which our relationship is dysfunctional at best. Although this is a comprehensive historical text, it also makes its points through the stories of individuals. Clearly-written and accessible.

Jana Lipman is at the forefront of young scholars who are reinventing the field of international relations from (as the metaphor goes) "the bottom up." Her social/labor history provides a news lens on empire, and, perhaps just as important, it demonstrates that "high diplomacy" did not always or by itself determine relations between Cuba and the United States. Everyday contacts and dilemmas, as Lipman shows, proved just as decisive in structuring relations between the two countries. This book should prompt more examination of the worldwide network of US military bases, and, in a deeper sense, the quotidian but crucial components of US hegemony.

History told from the bottom up almost always forces the reader to think about human injustice. This is certainly true of Jana Lipman's compellingly written, well researched study of those who built and worked at the Guantánamo naval base prior to the success of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Lipman did field research in Guantánamo City and her distillation of the interviews she conducted makes an important contribution to the history of this unique U.S. military installation. As Lipman persuasively argues, Cuban workers had to navigate between being loyal Cuban citizens and trustworthy employees of the U.S. Navy. What is most fascinating to me is Lipman's information concerning those Cuban laborers who were also working to ensure the success of the Cuban Revolution. But what of those workers who liked working for the U.S. government, appreciated the benefits they received, and continued to live in Cuba and commuted to the base long after the Revolution had succeeded? This is an vital part of the history that is missing from Lipman's account.

Stephen Irving Max Schwab, author of Guantánamo, USA: The Untold History of America's Cuban Outpost