Emily J. Kirk, Isabel Story, and Anna Clayfield (eds.), Disaster Preparedness and Climate Change in Cuba

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.14.2.0359
• Published date: 20 January 2023
• Date: 20 January 2023
• Pages: 359-361
• Author: Al Campbell

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BOOK REVIEWS

Emily J. Kirk, Isabel Story, and Anna Clayfield (eds.), Disaster Preparedness

and Climate Change in Cuba (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021),

hbk 248 pp. ISBN 9781793651310

Reviewed by Al Campbell1

There are always two related questions that frame looking at any institutions or

social procedures in Cuba. The first is the same as frames looking at the institu-

tions or social procedures of any of the world’s almost 200 countries: specifically

and in detail, how do these operate in the particular national setting being con-

sidered? While all national institutions and social practices vary between all

countries (hence the point of the first question), with Cuba there is very often

(not always) a second question framing the investigation, which is exactly the

subtitle of the first chapter: “What makes the Cuban approach different?” Given

as argued that there are differences between all countries, what the second

question really asks is: “what is it about the Cuban social organisation that

makes the considered institutions and social practices so significantly different

from how they are (or are not) dealt with in the ‘the rest of the world’”. Disaster

Preparedness and Climate Change in Cuba: Management and Adaptation very

much addresses both questions. Much of the material consists of detailed discus-

sion on how the issues addressed are addressed in Cuba. But then all the chapters

go beyond that to also consider and discuss how those issues are addressed dif-

ferently in Cuba from “the rest of the world”, and in particular, how these

differences are related to its particular social organisation. And while there are

many such differences, one that is very important and keeps popping up through-

out the chapters, is the degree of popular participation that is built into the very

design of all of Cuba’s disaster preparedness and management.

It is important to note that the title of the book indicates it will address two

issues, that although they are related in an obvious way, are distinct: disaster

preparedness, and preparing for climate change. As the world is now aware –

with an awareness that like the disaster itself is growing exponentially every year

– the cataclysmic climate change that is already happening is a social and natural

disaster. But going the other direction, there are many social and natural disas-

ters other than climate change, notwithstanding that many of the biggest and

1 Al Campbell is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and an

editor of the International Journal of Cuban Studies.

DOI:10.13169/intejcubastud.14.2.0359