The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The Light in the Darkness

by Charles McKelvey

Overview

The book interprets the Cuban revolutionary movement from 1868 to 1959 as a continuous process that sought political independence and social and economic transformation of colonial and neocolonial structures. Cuba is a symbol of hope for the Third World. The Cuban Revolution took power from a national elite subordinate to foreign capital, and placed it in the hands of the people; and it subsequently developed alternative structures of popular democracy that have functioned to keep delegates of the people in power. While Cuba has persisted, the peoples of the Third World, knocked down by the neoliberal project, have found social movement and political life, a renewal that is especially evident in Latin America and the Non-Aligned Movement. At the same time, the capitalist world-economy increasingly reveals its unsustainability, and the global elite demonstrate its incapacity to respond to a multifaceted and sustained global crisis. These dynamics establish conditions for popular democratic socialist revolutions in the North.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319621593
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	11/08/2017
Series:	Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice
Edition description:	1st ed. 2018
Pages:	277
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Charles McKelvey is Professor Emeritus at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, USA. He currently lives in Havana, where he actively participates in Cuban intellectual life.

Table of Contents

1. The Global and Historical Context.- 2. The Cuban Anti-Colonial Revolution.- 3. The Failure of the Cuban Neocolonial Republic.- 4. The Taking of Power by the People.- 5. The Cuban Revolutionary Project.- 6. The Structural Crisis of the Neocolonial World-System.- 7. The Third World Project of National and Social Liberation.- 8. Socialism for the Twenty-First Century.- 9. Seeking a Just, Democratic and Sustainable World-System.- 10. Appendix: The Rise of Trump and the Failure of the Left.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This work reflects years of enormous interdisciplinary investigative work as well as constant perseverance in sharing with Cuba’s sons and daughters their eternal joys and perennial difficulties. With a notable personal stamp, the author formulates his own epistemological method with respect to the relation between the horizons of the global North and global South. Analyzing the world-system from the perspective of Wallerstein, he offers his own reflections on how to construct a socialist system in the North. The dissemination of the book is indispensable for the knowledge and general education of present and future generations.” (Gladys Hernández Pedraza, Researcher, Center for Research on the World Economy, Cuba)