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bahareads's review against another edition
informative
reflective
4.0
Cuban Memory Wars seeks to show that the Cuban story is multi-faceted; there are more than two camps- those who stayed and those left. Bustamante reveals the Cuban retrospective conflict after 1959 was central to the course of Cuban history. Drawing upon oral sources and rare press, Bustamante seeks to go deeper than that previous historical monographs have done. Focusing on the two decades of revolution 1959-1979, Bustamante tracks the dualistic visions of Cuban history. The conclusion shows that Cubans have "never been divided into just two camps." The different chapters tackles the explanation the Revolution's historical roots and claims to power; Castro's opponents who failed to unite; Bay of Pigs as a revolutionary myth; Cuban exiles' politics in the second decade; revolutionary improvement creating a stable 1970s Cuba; and the encounters that came for exiles returning to Cuba starting in 1979.
Michael Bustamante sums it like so "ultimately, this book is not primarily a study of the commemoration of individual events, or the memory of particular subgroups of the Cuban population. Rather, it explores contests over the national epic in political and cultural motion during the Revolution's first two decades… They [actors and themes] prove that the Cuban memory wars have never been a strictly polarized affair. They have always involved a more nested, multi violent set of anxieties and debates."
Michael Bustamante sums it like so "ultimately, this book is not primarily a study of the commemoration of individual events, or the memory of particular subgroups of the Cuban population. Rather, it explores contests over the national epic in political and cultural motion during the Revolution's first two decades… They [actors and themes] prove that the Cuban memory wars have never been a strictly polarized affair. They have always involved a more nested, multi violent set of anxieties and debates."
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