Book review

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.7.2.0265
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• Date: 01 December 2015
• Pages: 265263-269
• Author: Al Campbell

IJCS Produced and distributed by Pluto Journals www.plutojournals.com/ijcs/

BOOK REVIEWS

Alejandro de la Fuente ed., Cuban Studies 43 (Pittsburgh, PA: University of

Pittsburgh Press, 2015) hb 263pp. ISBN: 9780822944218

Reviewed by Al Campbell

After a three-year hiatus, Cuban Studies (CS) has returned, publishing number

43 in July 2015. Its return is welcome. To all appearances and expectations, the

once-a-year journal has effected a successful organisational transition. Long-

time member of the CS team Alejandro de la Fuente is the new editor. It also has

a new assistant editor and a reconstructed Advisory Board (‘something old and

something new ...’). At the same time, as the selection of the editor, the composi-

tion of the Advisory Board and the contents of this issue make clear, the nature

of the resurrected CS is very much what it was before the interregnum.

Two things have marked the nature of articles in CS for its entire history.

First, as Alejandro de la Fuente says in the introductory Editor’s Note, the jour-

nal has always ‘sought to publish empirically based, methodologically sound,

serious academic research’. Having those goals does not, of course, imply politi-

cal neutrality, and this reviewer maintains that it would be hard for any objec-

tive observer to view CS as politically neutral concerning Cuba’s project of

building socialism. There is a spectrum of opinions about Cuba and in particular

about both the desirability and the effects of its central social goal of building

socialism, both in Cuba and around the globe. If one looks over the entire col-

lection of back issues of CS as well as this issue, one will see that (1) it has run

articles from all over that spectrum, (2) a number of its articles have next to

nothing to do with the issue of the view of socialism and (3) the ‘centre of grav-

ity’ of the articles published is solidly in the part of that spectrum that not only

opposes the Cuban government and the majority of its activities but also opposes

the project of building socialism in Cuba, and believes that the Cuban people

would be better off if capitalism was re-established. This anti-Cuban govern-

ment/anti-socialist ‘centre of gravity’ of the articles in CS over its entire history

then is the second highlighted indicative aspect of its nature.

It needs to be strongly underlined that this characterisation of CS is not

intended as a subtle and polite way to argue that the journal and its articles are

really of no interest to anyone who, like this reviewer, strongly backs Cuba’s

commitment to the goal of building socialism (notwithstanding any differences