CART: 0 item(s) $0.00Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis
| By James G. Blight and Philip Brenner |
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Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. | |||||||||||||||||
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"The value of Blight and Brenner's book is that it presents the Cuban perspective in extensive detail. Sad and Luminous Days will provide an important counterpoint to the stream of simplistic books about the missile crisis that are sure to appear. "— Library Journal
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In October 1962 school children huddled under their desks and diplomats feverishly negotiated as the world sat on the brink of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous moment in modern history and resulted in a changed worldview for the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba.
In tracing the developments of the missile crisis and beyond, Sad and Luminous Days presents and interprets a heretofore unavailable (and largely unknown) secret speech that Castro delivered to the Cuban leadership in 1968. In it, Castro reflects on the crisis and reveals the distrust and bitterness that characterized Cuban-Soviet relations in 1968. Blight and Brenner frame the annotated speech with an examination of the missile crisis itself, and an analysis of Cuban-Soviet relations between 1962-1968, ending with an epilogue that highlights the lessons the missile crisis offers us in the current search for security and a stable world order.
Sad and Luminous Days sheds new light on Cuban-Soviet relations and should be required reading not only for Cold-War scholars and historians, but also for anyone intrigued by the drama of the thirteen momentous days in October 1962.
About the Authors
James G. Blight is professor of international relations at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies and is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books on U.S. foreign policy, including five on the Cuban missile crisis. Philip Brenner is professor of international relations at American University in Washington, DC, and chair of American University's Inter-Disciplinary Council on the Americas. A specialist in U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America, he has been engaged in research about U.S.-Cuban relations since 1974.