Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976

Envisioning Cuba

by Piero Gleijeses

This is a compelling and dramatic account of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses's fast-paced narrative takes the reader from Cuba's first steps to assist Algerian rebels fighting France in 1961, to the secret war between Havana and Washington in Zaire in 1964-65--where 100 Cubans led by Che Guevara clashed with 1,000 mercenaries controlled by the CIA--and, finally, to the dramatic dispatch of 30,000 Cubans to Angola in 1975-76, which stopped the South African advance on Luanda and doomed Henry Kissinger's major covert operation there.

Based on unprecedented archival research and firsthand interviews in virtually all of the countries involved--Gleijeses was even able to gain extensive access to closed Cuban archives--this comprehensive and balanced work sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations. It revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, challenges conventional U.S. beliefs about the influence of the Soviet Union in directing Cuba's actions in Africa, and provides, for the first time ever, a look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War.

"Fascinating . . . and often downright entertaining. . . . Gleijeses recounts the Cuban story with considerable flair, taking good advantage of rich material.--"Washington Post Book World"

"Gleijeses's research . . . bluntly contradicts the Congressional testimony of the era and the memoirs of Henry A. Kissinger. . . . After reviewing Dr. Gleijeses's work, several former senior United States diplomats who were involved in making policy toward Angola broadly endorsed its conclusions.--"New York Times"

"With the publication of "Conflicting Missions," Piero Gleijeses establishes his reputation as the most impressive historian of the Cold War in the Third World.

Drawing on previously unavailable Cuban and African as well as American sources, he tells a story that's full of fresh and surprising information. And best of all, he does this with a remarkable sensitivity to the perspectives of the protagonists. This book will become an instant classic.--John Lewis Gaddis, author of "We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History"

Based on unprecedented research in Cuban, American, and European archives, this is the compelling story of Cuban policy in Africa from 1959 to 1976 and of its escalating clash with U.S. policy toward the continent. Piero Gleijeses sheds new light on U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert operations, revolutionizes our view of Cuba's international role, and provides the first look from the inside at Cuba's foreign policy during the Cold War.

Genres: History, Africa, Politics, Nonfiction, Angola, South Africa, Latin American History

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Eren Buğlalılar · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a masterpiece.

After many visits to Havana and numberless applications to the Cuban government, historian Gleijeses was finally given access to Cuban archives on country's involvement in African liberation movements. And using Cuban, US and African archives, he produced this masterful study.

I made extensive notes, but for me the most interesting to see was the Cuban government's very high revolutionary solidarity and diplomacy skills. Unlike the Soviet Union, Cubans were extremely skilful in showing full revolutionary solidarity without impinging on the sovereignty of the revolutionary movement or government they were supporting. Admirable.

If you are interested in revolutionary struggles, internationalism, anti-colonial history or modern African history, you must read this book and its second volume Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976-1991.

[Zach Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

"For Fidel Castro there is no 'darkest Africa.' It is all ablaze with lights--the campfires of fellow revolutionaries."

I'm often asked for examples of military intervention that is right and justified. Cuba's intervention in multiple African states' anti-colonial wars is where I turn, and Piero Gleijeses is the best in telling the story. The thing about Cuba that always stands out to me is its selflessness. When they brought tens of thousands of African students to study in Cuba, it was all free. When they sent weapons, doctors, soldiers, and advisors to various guerrilla groups, it was all free. Castro's foreign policy wasn't guided by political calculation or economic interest, but in liberating people. And nowhere is that better exemplified than in the 1960s/1970s in Africa.

Cubans helped Algeria in 1961, restrained Morocco from attacking Algeria in 1963, supported the Simba rebels in Zaire in 1964, aided the MPLA in the Congo in 1965-1966, provided crucial military support to the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau in 1966, delivered a crushing blow to the South African apartheid army in Angola in 1976, and while this is covered in his sequel book "Visions of Freedom," they went on to help defend Ethiopia from a Somali invasion in 1978.

Nelson Mandela summed it up on a visit to Havana: "What other country can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations with Africa?"

What this book also makes sharply clear is Cuba's independent foreign policy vis a vis the Soviet Union. Propaganda suggests that Cuba was just a pawn of the Soviet Union, but Gleijeses' provides the proof here that not only did Cuba sometimes keep the Soviet Union in the dark with what they were doing; they often disobeyed Soviet decisions if they felt it was justified.

Cuba's story should be an inspiration to us all today, because it was an inspiration to Africa, and particularly Southern Africa, 50 years ago. The crushing defeat that forced the South African apartheid army to retreat from Angola went on to inspire the Namibian war for independence, forced the US to abandon Rhodesia, and inspired South African rebels to reinvigorate the struggle against the apartheid regime.

We can and must learn from Cuba's selflessness, dedication, and love for the people.

[Zeb Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I'm rather burnt out on history books at the moment, I rarely describe them as "impossible to put down." This book is an exception to that rule. It's an incredible piece of scholarship that challenges many preconceived notions about Cuba and the Cold War.

[Jacob Woocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Very long and detailed but full of interesting stories and never boring. File this under "US are the baddies" and also under "Cuba is absolutely heroic."

[Demetrius Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this week’s book Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976, my conceptions on Cuba’s foreign policies was that it was minimal and not influential at all; after reading this compelling book I have a better understanding of how complex and prominent the Cuban government could be. Piero Gleijeses does a wonderful job of researching and gathering information on this topic. He travels numerous times to Cuba and Africa to obtain official documents and statement s from key proponents. In Conflicting Missions Gleijeses lays out Cuba’s extensive foreign policy towards parts of Africa and Gleijeses also shows how the United States reacted to the Cuban interventions.
Gleijeses argument goes against the common thought that American have about Cuba’s foreign policies. Gleijeses argues that Cuba acted independent of the Soviet Union and even sometimes against the Soviet Union. In the book Gleijeses points out that when the Soviet Union wanted to calm tensions with the United States Cuba went off and did whatever they wanted. Before this book I personally had a common thought shared with other Americans that Cuba was merely a puppet of the Soviet Union. This brings me to question the power that the United States has in controlling the media. In this book we see examples of the government trying to play down what is actually happening. The structure of the book is presented in chronological order and this helps the reader with a concise timeline from 1959-1976.
Conflicting Missions starts with Algeria and their fight for independence from the French. Fidel Castro wanted to lend aid to Algeria and build up relations and allies in the continent. Time and again the United States continues to not acknowledge the significance of Cuba’s support in the region. The United States is more worried about the Soviet Union and its intentions. In Zaire we see again Cuba’s attempt to become a player in Africa and we also see the United States trying to work its magic behind the scene with the help of the CIA. In the case of Zaire the CIA makes certain that they have their own puppet and that puppet is Moise Tshombe a brutal and corrupt prime minister who had the backing of the United States government. Gleijeses points out because of the intervention by the United States Zaire had some of the worst uprisings and injustices in its history as a country. With the United States backing the official government in Zaire Castro felt it necessary to send Che Guevara to help the Simba rebels. Castro made it clear that he didn’t want this turn into a war for Cuba. As the conflict raged on Tshombe felt it necessary to find supporters he looked to South Africa and white benefactors (mercenaries). Lyndon Johnson took up the tab for these mercenaries. Johnson had the notion that Tshombe and Mobutu could not fall to communist rebels. I wish the book went into greater detail about the actions of Johnson and the misrepresentations of information that was being delivered to him. Gleijeses should have spent more time on the CIA involvement on influencing the judgment of the president to intervene.
The intervention by the United States, Europeans and South Africa halted the rebel forces and required Cuba to move their focus to the Congo. To the United States they could not lose the center of Africa to communism and the Soviet Union, the Cubans on the other hand simply wanted to gain another ally. The Cubans already provided aid to the territory with poliomyelitis vaccines. As time moved forward we see larger focus on military aid in the Congo. With help from Cuba the government of the Congo was allowed to stay in power.
In Angola is where we major involvement from Cuba in Africa. The support from Cuba is minimal at first but rapidly goes when South Africa and the United States start to move into the country by support of factions like the FNLA and UNITA. By 1976 Castro sends over thirty thousand troops to Angola forcing South Africa to back off. When this happened the United States tried its best to remove itself from the topic and admit not involvement in the country.
This book has been a great eye opener when it comes to Cuban foreign policies. I’m also left confused and perplexed with the understanding of what the United States had to gain from intervention in these African countries. At best the United States made the problem worst in most cases. Overall in conclusion this book is a must read and is relatable to a select audience in an upper academic capacity. I would highly recommend this book for further study and research on the topic.
 

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conflicting Missions takes a detailed and academic (and make no mistake this is an academic book) look at Cuba's decision-making process and actions in intervening in Africa. It begins with it's assistance to newly liberated Algeria and moves on from there to a look at the Simba Uprising in the Congo, Cuba's aid to the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau and finally their armed intervention in Angola in 1975-76.

As others have noted, the author draws on a number of Cuban and American documents as well as newspaper articles and second-hand sources. He provides a typical level of citations and quotations in the book to back up his points, and there can be little mistake about how much effort he put into researching this book. For the most part it is engagingly written and interesting to read, particularly where it discusses Cuba's dispatch of doctors to revolutionary movements, and their influx of scholarship money, weapons, and other items at no cost to the rebels is indeed a testament to Cuba's revolutionary fervor - particularly in light of its small size and economic weakness.

The issues that I have are two-fold, however. Firstly, Gleijeses tends to get a bit bogged down in the minutae of proving some of his points as to who said what or what really happened on relatively minor points. These asides can go on for pages and tend to make the reader forget the point he was trying to make in the first place. Secondly, he spends a lot of time discussing the US and Cuba's butting of heads in other parts of the world leaving some chapters a bit light on actual discussion about events in Africa. A notable exception to this is the Guinea-Bissau and Angola chapters.

My second issue, though, is his analysis. The book clearly paints the Cubans in a relatively courageous and intelligent light though with a few missteps due to inexperience. In contrast, the US is portrayed as an aloof, imperialistic, and venial group who constantly backs the "bad guys". He tends to gloss over the excesses of the Simbas that the Cubans supported, their support for the dictatorship of Equatorial Guinea, and provides a scant paragraph to the failures of the MPLA to win the peace in Angola. Not only this, but his analysis of Angola, where both side intervened with advisors at the same time, and where South Africa (who certainly had its national security threatened much more so than the Cubans) intervened only slightly ahead of masses of Cubans, tends to portray the Cubans as, again, idealistic revolutionaries fighting the good fight and winning against the evil white South Africans. Such a conclusion is poor at best, and does nothing to even nod to the fact that might see Cuban advisors thousands of miles from home assisting a semi-Communist rebel group as somewhat troubling.

Such a one-sided analysis of Cuba's interventions into Africa are imperfect at another level as well. While Gleijeses touts the righteousness of the Cuban cause, he neglects to really focus on the results. With the exception of the PAIGC victory (which the Cubans had little part in from what it seems) Cubas only real successful assistance was to Angola, and that is even questionable considering the South Africans came back later and the civil war the Cubans tried to help the MPLA win did not end. In this sense, the author gets so entrapped in the specifics that he fails to reflect on the end result, which was mixed.

Overall, it is an intriguing and in-depth look at a very esoteric subject, and unlikely to be surpassed for years in completeness. I believe in my very much layman's opinion, that the analysis and overall structure/use of asides could use some amendments, though.
Comment

[Sasha (bahareads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Piero Gleijeses argues that Castro’s foreign policy in Africa was driven by revolutionary zeal and self-preservation and that by helping spark revolutions in Africa that the United States and other Western powers had to deal with it took the pressure off of Cuba during the fraught time of the Cold War.

Gleijeses uses Zaire and Angola as case studies to show Cold War crises in Africa up to 1976, and the United States' foreign policy in Africa. He proves throughout the book that the United States did not see Cuba as a threat in Africa. He shows readers using US officials’ own words they were surprised at Cuban intervention in Africa. Gleijeses states that Cuban intervention in Africa was a continuum of Cuba's relations with Africa, the Soviet Union, and the United States. He emphasises that African intervention was easier than Latin American intervention for Cuba because it had fewer risks and there was no head-to-head collision with the United States, though Cuba had more similarities to countries in Latin America than in Africa.

One of Gleijeses’ methods is to use a semi-biographical narrative approach for the book. He traces the various African leaders, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara actions and uses their personal documents to show how the various leaders shaped the historical events throughout the book. Gleijeses intervenes in Cold War historiography by telling a story from below. He shows the perspective of a 'third-world' country helping and intervening in another 'third-world' country. Gleijeses tells the voice of the ‘defeated’ of the Cold War years.

[Betsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very narrow focus. You need to either know a little about African and Cuba and history or a lot about one to follow the book. He gets very repetitive, and uses excess numbers and examples to make his point that are not need, and just drag the book. He seems to not like Kissinger, and any of the US policies. Had to read it for a class and was one of the driest and least interesting books for the class

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really you only need to hear from Africans themselves, who fought alongside and received sustainable military training, expertise (health, construction), and education (free scholarships at Cuba's higher education institution for thousands of African adolescents) from Cuba.

In July 1991 Nelson Mandela visited Havana and wrote the epitaph to the story of Cuba’s aid to Africa during the Cold War. His words set off ‘‘a gusher’’ of criticism in the United States. ‘‘We come here with a sense of the great debt that is owed the people of Cuba,’’ he said. ‘‘What other country can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations with Africa?’’

‘‘We know,’’ he said,
that we were able to fight and triumph because other countries and people
helped us . . . with weapons, with medicine, with supplies. . . . But there is one
nation that in addition to material, political, and diplomatic support, even
sent its children to fight by our side, to shed their blood in our land alongside
that of the best children of our country.
This great people, this heroic people, we all know that it is the heroic people
of Cuba; the Cuba of Fidel Castro; the Cuba of the Sierra Maestra; the Cuba
of Moncada. . . . Cuba sent its best sons here to help us in the technical aspects
of our war, to help us wage this great struggle . . . against Portuguese
colonialism.
One of the sons of Cuba who fought and shed his blood in our land is
here with us: our brother and comrade Pedro Rodríguez Peralta, who was
wounded and captured . . . on November 18, 1969, and spent five years in
Portugal in the prison of Caxias.
On this day on which we honor our heroes and our martyrs . . . the government of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau has decided to give our comrade
Comandante Pedro Rodríguez Peralta the Amílcar Cabral medal of bravery

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Gleijeses wrote this because he was curious about Cuba's intervention in Angola, which is exactly why I chose to read it, but he finds the Cuban foreign policy of the era was quite consistent beyond just Angola. He makes a point of writing the history a Third World country, arguably a loser in the Cold War, in a way that does not view it solely from a US perspective. He wrote a history for the losers, essentially, and the Cuban interventions in Africa were far more idealistic and revolutionary than the motives of the US or USSR in any proxy war.
Parts of this are very long and detailed attempts to put together a military history which was poorly recorded. Gleijeses had unprecedented access to some classified Cuban archives, which is fascinating at times and tedious others. Nonetheless he is a very good writer, the story is well told.
My take away from this is how Cuba took huge economic and political losses for the goal of spreading the ideology which they believed would save their fellow Third World nations. In light of stagnant totalitarianism on the island, solidarity with Africa may be Cuba's greatest unsung legacy.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface, Piero Gleijeses’ Conflicting Missions is a standard diplomatic history, narrating the growth of Cuba’s involvement in African independence movements through the lens of major political players. The book’s greatest strength, however, lies in its attempt to tell the story through the perspective of the Cubans and, to a lesser extent, the Africans, a difficult undertaking for a book researched and published in an era of tense American-Cuban relations. Even while earning the distinction of being the only non-Cuban scholar to be given access to government archives, the author was limited in his ability to achieve his objective and is often forced to fill in gaps through American and European sources. Nonetheless, his work succeeds in shifting the focus away from the major Cold War powers, challenging assumptions about his topic, and integrating commentary from individuals (including Africans) who were involved directly in the conflicts.

Gleijeses begins with a chapter that provides a context for Castro’s Cuba, discussing the period between his rise to power and 1964, by which point Cuba’s attempts to foster revolutions in Latin America had failed and its relationship with the Soviet Union was weakening. This latter point is key, as one of the book’s strongest assertions is that Cuba’s involvement in Africa was an independent endeavor and the nation was not, as previous studies have suggested, acting merely as a puppet or proxy for the Soviet Union. The next chapter examines Cuba’s growing ties with Africa, focusing on its relationship with the FLN revolutionary movement in Algeria and, eventually, the independent government under Ben Bella. These developments demonstrate not only that Castro’s policies were not dictated by the Soviet Union, but that he would risk larger interests to assist revolutionaries. This is evidenced by his willingness to send troops against Morocco on Algeria’s behalf, even though Morocco was one of the few major nations engaging the Cuban economy in the face of American sanctions.

The United States ignored, and was largely ignorant of, Cuba’s involvement in Algeria, but the 1964 revolution in Zanzibar led the Americans to perceive a genuine communist (and, to a limited extent, Cuban) threat in Africa for the first time (even though the uprising was not truly communist). Chapter three, however, highlights the recurring theme of the United States’ repeated underestimation of Cuba’s influence and presence in Africa. The fourth chapter details Cuba’s testing of the waters in Africa, which led it to dispatch a military column to Zaire to train and aid a socialist military movement. This is arguably the most engaging part of Gleijeses’ narrative, as the story of the Zaire expedition is told almost exclusively through the perspective of the Cubans and the Africans and fills a key gap in American historiography, since United States sources knew little about this episode. The next three chapters detail the ultimate failure of the rebellion, with Cuba having overestimated the potential of the movement, yet claim that the only negative impact of this experience for the Cubans was psychological. They also reinforce the themes of independent action from the Soviet Union and American ignorance of Cuban involvement.

The three chapters that follow examine the nation’s activities in the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, and Bolivia, establishing the failures and successes, as well as the domestic developments, that eventually motivated its involvement in Angola. The author then establishes a political context for Angola, where the socialist MPLA was on the threshold of controlling the newly-independent nation until the United States covertly supported South African military involvement in the hopes of ensuring victory for the more pro-Western FNLA and UNITA movements. Here the narrative has a more American focus, but Gleijeses does a good job of eschewing superficial explanations and dissecting the complex and nuanced motivations behind the United States’ unexpected engagement in African politics, demonstrating clearly his talents in research and analysis. It was at this juncture that Cuba, believing that neither the United States nor South Africa was in a position to unleash its full forces, entered the fray to successfully turn the tide of battle back in the MPLA’s favor. Cuba’s assessment was correct and neither the United States nor South Africa had anticipated Cuba’s involvement, nor were they willing or able to commit further military resources.

The author’s penultimate chapter is his most analytical, as it attempts to use Cuban and African sources to uncover the truth about contentious aspects of the conflict, or at least present new perspectives. Most notably, his examination reconfirms the idea that Cuba was in no way a puppet of the Soviet Union in terms of its Angolan intervention and that, in fact, the latter knew very little about the expedition until after it had begun. Furthermore, America’s involvement was not based on a genuine concern about communist influence (since the MPLA, although Marxist-leaning, was not a committed socialist organization), but an issue of prestige, for Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in particular, following its failures in Vietnam. The conclusion summarizes the political context of foreign intervention in Africa during this period and reinforces the work’s major themes. Overall, Gleijeses’ self-admitted difficulties in acquiring sufficient sources limits his ability to tell the story entirely outside of the perspective of the major powers and, as a diplomatic history, it has a natural tendency to emphasize the role of high politics. It also means that his work vacillates in terms of depth at different points in the narrative. Nevertheless, his ambitious project succeeds in the ways mentioned above and, as such, it is a worthwhile read for any student of the field. It also remains accessible to be engaging for a casual reader as well, even those who may not appreciate its historiographical contribution.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful work that utilizes primary sources from both U.S. and Cuban archives to establish the facts of the Cuban interventions in Africa as well as Cuba's understanding of proletarian internationalism. Gleijeses proves decisively that Cuba is not a product of Soviet "social imperialism" that the ultra-left alleges, but a highly independent variable that was willing and able to defy Soviet wishes to assist the anti-imperialist struggle globally. Contradicting both previous historical accounts as well as the published lies of Kissinger, Gleijeses' work excellently dispels Cold War propaganda regarding Cuban foreign policy and sheds light on the activities of Che Guevara and others in Africa. All in all, an excellent work both in Cuban history, African anti-imperialist, and attacking the lies and smoke screens of Kissinger and his Killing Krew.

[Nicola Tanno · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece. The author has uncovered one of the most thrilling and least known adventures of the 20th century. The left is so passionate about its defeats that it often ignores its most remarkable victories—such as these. Cuba played a crucial role in supporting Algeria when it was threatened by Morocco, in the independence struggles of Guinea-Bissau and Angola, in the liberation of Namibia, and in the end of apartheid in South Africa. This book and its sequel tell that story. White South Africans once seemed as invincible as the Israelis do today, and Cuba made an essential contribution to dismantling that illusion.
The book was made possible thanks to exclusive access to Cuban sources, and it is superbly written.

[Daniel Polansky]

A studiously researched, compellingly reasoned overview of Cuban intervention in post-Colonial Africa. I was vaguely aware of the role Cuba played in the Angolan Civil War (War of Indpendence?) but Gleijeses does a marvelous job of exploring the Cold War shenanigans of the Great Powers and tiny Cuba's peculiar (and sometimes effective) willingness to counter them. As is generally the case when reading about imperial policy (be it American, Russian, English, Roman, what have you) one is struck by the constant misreading of the situation by the people in power—which is to say, fuck Henry Kissinger.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

All I gotta say is, I don't understand why every single IR book and class doesn't read and engage with this book. Cuba's foreign policy just seems like it totally breaks nearly every theory of international politics slash Cold War history I've learned during the PhD so far... I've thought about things in this book pretty much every day since I finished it, it's that mind-blowing

[Fidel Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly informative and well-researched book that changed my life.

[Archie Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

prob more 4.5 stars but this shit blew my mind

[Matthew Oravets · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really in depth look at a pocket of the Cold War I had no knowledge about! Great read.

[Tiago Relvão · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great in depth analyzis of Cuban involvement in Africa, including Algeria, Zaire, Guine Bissau and Angola, the last one being the most covered. An interesting view on often overlooked part of african independance conflicts and the Cold War. As a Portuguese, the cuban involvement in the colonial wars is often overlooked, and, in a way, it was quite marginal- the biggest one was a lot medical aid and military training in Guiné. Cuba biggest impact was in Angola, delivering a decisive blow to the South African military invasion, securing the MPLA government, winning the first phase of the Angolan Civil War.

The books sometimes fall too much into the details of the investigation, showing still the lack of information still available, namely from the soviet era files.

[Carlos Lizarralde · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a chronicle of the personalities and intrigues behind Cuba's 1970s involvement in Africa. The book has much information, but a more in-depth perspective on the economic and social implications of the intervention for Cuba and Africa would have been welcomed.

[crenee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book provides insight into Cuban internationalism during the Cold War, particularly its participation in anticolonial armed conflict in Southern Africa. Author was the first to get into the Cuban archives and get documents declassified. Only downside is that it lacks a certain objectivity ... Cubans are portrayed as heroes without shadows.

[Rob Scharf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly useful and well-written text.

A thoroughly researched effort with a diverse bibliography full of archival research and secondary sources from multiple countries including the United States, United Kingdom, East Germany, West Germany, Belgium, as well as from the difficult-to-access Cuban archives.

[Yunis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great scholarship in this book. Havana is giving portrayal that would have been forgotten by history. Great look at the American policy in the African continent during this time period

[Jason S · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit too long, but otherwise fascinating accoutn of Cuban involvement in sub-Saharan Africa during the Cold War. Impressively written and researched.

[Brook Finlayson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Castro/Guevara side of the Cold War. Well done.

[Nato · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is historical scholarship at its best about a fascinating and relatively unknown subject. Following the author through voluminous primary sources, interviews, and trying to make sense of different actors' various narratives was so satisfying. It was a great way to learn about Cuba and Africa both, and appreciate Cuba's outsize influence in the world.