Book review

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.9.1.0158
• Pages: 158172-161
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Date: 01 April 2017
• Author: Marcos Antonio da Silva

158 BOOK REVIEWS

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CUBAN STUDIES 9.1 SPRING 2017

Francisco López Segrera, Cuba-EEUU: de enemigos cercanos a amigos

distantes (1959–2015) (Barcelona: Editorial El Viejo Topo, 2015) pb 172pp.

ISBN: 9788416288472

Reviewed by Marcos Antonio da Silva

The joint announcement of the resumption of diplomatic relations between

Cuba and the US, in December 2014, has been one of the principal events of

regional geopolitics and inter-American relations. After five decades of detach-

ment, crisis, conflicts and aggressions, the main geopolitical conflict in Latin

America finally seems to be following the course of normalisation. However,

despite the initial euphoria, many doubts continue to permeate the process:

What were the motivations of each government to start it? Is it possible to nor-

malise the relations between these countries after decades of mistrust and belli-

cosity? And, if so, what are its main constitutive elements? How can the demands

of each one affect a continuity of this process?

The conflict between Cuba and the US has a long history and begins with the

late independence of the Caribbean island from Spanish colonial dominion. At

the end of the long independence war, US action, driven by the famous Monroe

Doctrine, which guided the country’s foreign policy towards the region, and the

sinking of the Battleship Maine, overcame Cuban autonomy. Thus, through the

Platt Amendment, the US created a neocolonial domain and introduced sover-

eignty of tutelage that allowed for US omnipresence, until 1959, in Cuba’s econ-

omy, politics and culture.

With the revolutionary victory in 1959, and the changes introduced by the

new regime, which affected American interests, the logic of conflict began to

determine such a relationship. This logic was driven by the Cold War, the con-

flict between the two global superpowers, the ideals that they sought to repre-

sent, and the geopolitical principles and actions that guided such a confrontation.

In this context, Cuba developed a deep alliance (in all aspects) with the USSR

and sought to promote a development within the Soviet socialism framework,

which sharpened the conflict that became one of the most representative of this

period. With the end of the Soviet bloc and the deepening of the US embargo and

other actions, this conflict continued, albeit with its fundamentals and effective-

ness increasingly questioned, as the main Cold War legacy in the region.

In this way, as can be seen, the relations between Cuba and the US have

always been marked by the abnormality or the challenging arrangement of the

balance between autonomy and dependency, between proximity and conflict.

As a result, Francisco López Segrera’s book constitutes a fundamental text to

understand the context and the dynamics of rupture and resumption of diplomatic