Product Description: This book explores the diverse consequences of Presidents Obama and Castro brokering a rapprochement between the United States and Cuba after more than half a century of estrangement. Economic, political, social, and cultural dynamics are analyzed in accessible fashion by leading experts from Cuba, the United States, Europe, and Latin America...read more

Since 1959, conflict and aggression have dominated the story of U.S.-Cuban relations. From John F. Kennedy's offering of an olive branch to Fidel Castro after the missile crisis, to Henry Kissinger's top-secret quest for normalization, to Barack Obama's promise of a "new approach," William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh reveal a fifty-year record of dialogue and negotiations, both open and furtive, indicating a path toward better relations in the future. LeoGrande and Kornbluh have uncovered hundreds of formerly secret U.S. documents and conducted interviews with dozens of negotiators, intermediaries, and policy makers. The authors describe how, despite the political clamor surrounding any hint of better relations with Havana, serious negotiations have been conducted by every presidential administration since Eisenhower's through secret, back-channel diplomacy.

A painstakingly researched, exhaustive, and lucid account traces the tug-of-war among the U.S. government's branches and agencies to produce a coherent, productive foreign policy toward Central America in the waning years of the Cold War. UP.

Product Description: Throughout the 1980s, superpower rivalry and regional conflicts decimated the economies of Central America, eroding their political systems. Recent years, however, have witnessed remarkable political change and, since 1990, popularly elected presidents have held office in all 7 countries...read more

Essays discuss the Cuban Revolution, the Cuban economy, human rights, political participation, foreign relations, daily life, social services, and Cuban culture