This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the beginning of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the history of capitalism. However, while the Great Depression has been very much in the news of late, this is not due so much to this anniversary as to the fact that for the first time since the 1930s an economic crisis has arisen on a scale and of a nature that invites direct comparison with that earlier deep downturn, which threatened the entire system and ended in the Second World War. | more…
In the early 1990s there was near unanimity in the media, in Western political circles, and even among academics that the collapse of the Cuban revolution was imminent. Even today, many observers regard it as only a matter of time for Cuba to undergo a transition to democracy (understood as a narrowly defined polyarchy) and a “market economy.” | more…
The Cuban revolutionary victory of January 1, 1959, was a news event of epochal proportion even for those who knew little about that country. For many, it was like discovering a new world. And as in the age of the great navigators, encountering it was clouded both by ignorance and the prejudices that usually accompany such revelations. | more…
On August 19, 1960, Che Guevara gave a talk to the Cuban Militia “On Revolutionary Medicine”: “A few months ago, here in Havana, it happened that a group of newly graduated doctors did not want to go into the country’s rural areas and demanded remuneration before they would agree to go.” | more…
Nancy Morejón’s mother was a tobacco worker; her father worked on the Havana docks and was a merchant seaman. She is a direct beneficiary of the Cuban revolution, holding a degree in French literature from the University of Havana. The author of twelve volumes of poetry and numerous books and articles on Cuban and Caribbean culture, she has also been director of the Caribbean Studies Center at Casa de las Americas, the premier Latin American cultural institution. Morejón’s work has been translated into many languages, including, in English, Looking Within (Wayne State University Press, 2003) and With Eyes and Soul, with photographs by Milton Rogovin (White Pine Press, 2004, www.whitepine.org) from which this poem is reprinted. Copyright © 2004 by Nancy Morejón; Translation copyright © 2004 by David Frye. Used by permission. | more…
Over the last fifteen years, Cuba has developed one of the most successful examples of urban agriculture in the world. Havana, the capital of Cuba, with a population of over two million people, has played a prominent, if not dominant role, in the evolution and revolution of this type of agriculture. The phrase “urban agriculture in Cuba” has a somewhat different meaning, simultaneously more and less restrictive than might appear at a first glance. It is more inclusive, as it allows for large expanses, urban fringes, and suburban lands. For example, the entire cultivated area of the Province of the City of Havana belongs to urban agriculture. | more…