Cuban–Latin American Relations in the Context of a Changing Hemis ...

American relations, and what are the prospects for eventual changes in the U.S.-Cuban relationship?

This volume seeks to fill a significant void in the published scholarship in English on Cuba’s relationship with Latin America. Cuban foreign policy has received attention over the years, but the bulk of the scholarship has been on the country’s relationship with the United States. That relationship is important and will also be addressed in this book by Esteban Morales Dominguez, who for many years has been the island’s leading scholar of U.S.-Cuban relations. His most recent book, U.S.-Cuban Relations—A Critical History, was coauthored with Gary Prevost, a coeditor of this volume.¹ Other significant books have focused on Cuba’s relationship with both of the superpowers of the Cold War era and on Cuba’s role in Africa. Key works to be mentioned in this regard are Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba’s Struggle with the Superpowers after the Cuban Missile Crisis by James Blight and Philip Brenner and Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976 by Piero Gleijeses.² The most important writings on Cuban foreign policy more broadly have been the works of Michael Erisman that have been written over the last twenty-five years: Cuba’s International Relations: The Anatomy of a Nationalistic Foreign Policy (1985), Cuban Foreign Relations in a Post-Soviet World (2000), Redefining Cuban Foreign Policy: The Impact of the “Special Period” (2006), and Cuban Medical Internationalism (2010). The latter two books were written with the Canadian scholar John Kirk.³ Erisman contributes to this volume with an analysis of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). As a whole, this volume builds on Erisman’s scholarship, addressing Cuba’s current stance in the hemisphere in the wake of the political changes in the region during the last ten years.

In some ways, the changing relationship between Cuba and Latin America is not a new development. As far back as the 1970s, Cuba’s relations with various Latin American countries began to improve, but the last ten years have seen a qualitative change in the dynamic between Cuba and the entire region. That change is best embodied in Cuba’s full involvement in the Rio Group (a prominent Latin American regional organization) and more importantly, in the creation and growth of ALBA.