Best history of cuba books according to redditors

Yeah, real back channels are official and well-documented. Look no further than the Obama-Cuba negotiations, which have been reported to death and are even the subject of books. You don't try to hide them from your own fucking intelligence agencies.

The otherside of the mountain: the Mujahideen during the Soviet-afghan war and a great companian to the bear went over the mountain.
https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Afghan_Guerrilla_Warfare.html?id=3VJJDijysx8C&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

On Guerilla warfare: By Mao himself
https://books.google.com.au/books/about/On_Guerrilla_Warfare.html?id=4_yP6jTL1LgC&redir_esc=y

Guerilla warfare: by Che Guevera
https://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Warfare-Ernesto-Che-Guevara/dp/149299748X

Insurgency & Terrorism: in depth analysis of contemporary insugencies
https://www.amazon.com/Insurgency-Terrorism-Revolution-Apocalypse-Revised-ebook/dp/B001E2H5L0/ref=pd_aw_sim_351_1/132-8647266-8850646?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B001E2H5L0&pd_rd_r=3355dc30-a8e6-11e9-bd99-51f9e84bde3c&pd_rd_w=Dz8jC&pd_rd_wg=8Kasn&pf_rd_p=469620d9-3e90-496d-9dc8-b19f900ba5fe&pf_rd_r=M99YNW41VSS0RRKA56JM&psc=1&refRID=M99YNW41VSS0RRKA56JM

> but there's several reasons why a militia would win over a large-scale state army.

I too have read a good deal on the subject of guerrilla warfare and I honestly feel this is playing down how difficult it is for the militia. It takes massive political support, something anarchism does not have right now, and an incredibly skilled leadership, which anarchism is also lacking. Also the opposition needs networks to communicate and spread propaganda and literature amongst the people. There has to be multiple channels being used simultaneously such as the internet, paper(s), etc. Unfortunately the internet won't be of much use if there is no power or supplies to repair the technology needed to access it and industrial printing presses are not only few and far between, but are also bourgeois/government owned. This isn't even taking into account the sheer amount of manpower and weaponry that is needed. The former of which anarchism lacks and the latter of which Americans do have in number, but not strength. The days of attacking enemy convoys and simply taking their weaponry is long pasted with the advent of modern technology and increasingly advanced counter insurgency tactics. That being said it is possible and I'd argue somewhat common for an insurgency to win a war, but it is far from as simple as your post makes it out to be and is most definitely not a sure thing. It also usually has an idea that everyone, read people other than simply anarchist, can really get behind, support, and even die for.

The main factor I left out is the use of land, which I suppose could be lumped under the skilled leadership criteria stated above. This issue is an extremely important one as the terrain used and knowing how to use said terrain has been known as the great equalizer of men. It makes irregular forces and regular forces equals when they otherwise wouldn't be. If anyone has any questions please send me a PM.

Also I suppose since I asked for the other users who posted on the subject of guerrilla warfare to post their sources I should include my main sources. These are the main and best ones I've read but there are many others.

Partisan Warfare by O Heilbrunn

Insurgency and Terrorism:From Revolution to Apocalypse by Bard E. O'Neill

War of the Flea:The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare by Robert Taber

On Guerrilla Warfare by Mao Tse-Tung. You can find this for free here.

Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara. You can find a part of this for free here.

>So you're right, this is something a lot more anarchists should consider.

Everyone of every ideology should. You never know when you will need to fight an organized army. Be it an invading one or your own.

Also if you don't mind me asking what books have you read on the subject? I'm looking for some new ones.

Edits: *

>
>
>Amazon does, however, continue to sell the following works:
>
>Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto — the manifesto of a movement that murdered more than 100 million people, specifically targeting an entire class of people — the bourgeoisie — for destruction; for sale in many editions from the richest capitalist in the world
>
>Leon Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism — a defense of political terrorism
>
>Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf  — also available in many editions — which is apparently less threatening to the current world order than my book.
>
>The Unabomber’s Manifesto — which does seem to create a moral hazard. Want to get your book published? Start mailing out package bombs. Kill three people and injure 23 others, and your book might also be fit to stock at Amazon.com.
>
>Valerie Solanas’ S.C.U.M. Manifesto — S.C.U.M. being an acronym for Society to Cut Up Men. Solanas published her manifesto in 1967. In 1968, she attempted to murder Andy Warhol.
>
>The Anarchist’s Cookbook — corrected and updated to make it extra lethal
>
>Osama Bin Laden’s Messages to the World — mastermind one of history’s greatest terrorist attacks, and you too might be fit to stock at Amazon.com
>
>Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah — apparently there’s a whole library of books by Islamist terrorists for sale at Amazon.com
>
>Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State — the blueprint of the Zionist movement, which spawned the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine through terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and wars that continue to this day
>
>Black Nationalist Manifestos by such writers as Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad
>
>Everybody Talks About the Weather . . . We Don’t: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof
>
>Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare
>
>Al-Qaida’s Doctrine for Insurgency: Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin’s “a Practical Course for Guerrilla War”

​

Oh, I have no need of one, and probably won't even WROL/post-SHTF. Plus, I doubt my hunter neighbors would appreciate me setting the forest on fire.

One must always be careful with such mods.

Che liked them, though.

https://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Warfare-Ernesto-Che-Guevara/dp/149299748X

Cuba does have deeply ingrained problems with racism that Fidel Castro acknowledged all too late (2008) as one of the failures of the Cuban Revolution.

> I am not claiming that our country is a perfect model of equality and justice. We believed at the beginning that when we established the fullest equality before the law and complete intolerance for any demonstration of sexual discrimination in the case of women, or racial discrimination in the case of ethnic minorities, these phenomena would vanish from our society. It was some time before we discovered that marginality and racial discrimination with it are not something that one gets rid of with a law or even with ten laws, and we have not managed to eliminate them completely, even in 40 years.


That has also been my problem with some of the ideals of socialism, they aren't really distinguishable from liberal colorblindness. By assuming the unity of the working class to have been realized in principle, it maintains the existing racial class hierarchy.

So, notwithstanding the humanitarian and egalitarian work of the Revolution, black people and mestizos are still marginalized, especially at the higher levels of society (apart from the party structure). White dominance is still forcefully expressed, especially at the level of what is called the "new economy" (private ownership). The way power is distributed in present-day Cuban society does not go beyond what existed prior to 1959.

This is what Esteban Morales Domínguez, a black intellectual and a former member of Cuba's Communist Party, argues in Race in Cuba: Essays on the Revolution and Racial Inequality. The white minority still own almost all the capital in Cuba--economically and socially. This is reflected in the make up of Cuba's institutions. This is especially evident in the absence of Afro-Cubans in the upper leadership levels of the state, government and institutions of civil society in general.

At the same time, it's worth noting, Domínguez believes racism in Cuba is not institutionalized as it is in the United States (if at all), and that Cuba has the most educated and healthiest black population in the Western hemisphere.

"The Sea Rover's Practice" is a great overview of how privateering worked in the age of sail. The book seems very well-sourced, but the focus is on the experience and the techniques of sea raiding and piracy rather than on the biographical details of individual pirates. The author is a former Navy SEAL, and he gleans the historical accounts for technical details as if building a handbook for becoming a pirate himself, or a training manual for his boat crew. He covers every aspect of a pirate voyage from financial investment to executing the raid to wasting the booty in a seaside tavern. The book also serves as a fantastic introduction to maritime life in the period as a whole; you will finish this book with a solid understanding of sailing life.

TL;DR: 10/10, http://i.imgur.com/9KtBsL8.jpg

Here's the book it's based on: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Soldiers-Cold-War-Story-ebook/dp/B00NRPPHOO

Books on Pirates:

The Invisible Hook.

Villains of All Nations

The Buccaneers of America

Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates

The Sea Rovers Practice

The Buccaneers Realm

Empire of Blue Water

The demographic transition in Havana in the years following the ouster of Batista resulted in many of the homes of the wealthy being occupied by the families of those who were servants; the Revolution legalized those former servants' ownership as the years progressed. A fascinating and accessible book on the Urban development of Cuba is Henry Louis Taylor, Jr.'s "Inside el Barrio"

I'm aware of the coup in Chile, which is why it really wouldn't surprise me if the claims of US sponsored attacks in Cuba and harboring terrorists are true. I'd just hate to be biased by what I know about one area into believing things about another area that might not be true, or at least exaggerated.

Informed secondary analysis on this specific topic would be great. And I think it would benefit anyone interested in Cuba/US relations and history, regardless of where they stand on the matter.

On a side note, I actually just happened to buy a book on Cuba today. It's a few books behind on my list, but I'm really looking forward to reading it.

We do know why they're happening.

Have you ever read a history book? Generally speaking every single discussion* they ever had required a "note taker" and it's our custom to speak about these decisions a couple decades after. Obviously the whole truth isn't out there, and certainly not everyone tells the truth. But the motives behind everything I mentioned were clear as day.

I would encourage you to read books like

http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-The-History-CIA/dp/0307389006

http://www.amazon.com/Osama-Bin-Laden-Michael-Scheuer/dp/0199898391

http://www.amazon.com/One-Minute-Midnight-Kennedy-Khrushchev/dp/1400078911

These men aren't all powerful, they don't take orders from some homogenous group that always retains the same position. And most importantly the information our leaders are given is often woefully inaccurate. The president more than anyone has the information that he is presented to him manipulated. Although some certainly have been more savvy than others.

Guerilla Warfare by Che Guevara http://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Warfare-Ernesto-Che-Guevara/dp/149299748X it expounds on the lessons learned in the Cuban Revolution. Very practical.

Generally speaking there were two "very close calls":

• 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis. You probably know about this one. The danger, most historians currently believe, is less that either nation would voluntarily start the war. Rather, the situation quickly devolved down to threats from accidental escalation between relatively low-level military forces, and the possibility of misjudgment. So one example, there was an American military ship dropping depth charges onto a Soviet submarine, intending to just make them surface, but the Soviet sub interpreted it as an attack, and were one vote away from replying with a nuclear-tipped torpedo. Another example: the US military was very seriously considering invading the island of Cuba, not knowing that the Soviets had actually transferred many dozens of tactical nuclear weapons there, and that the Cubans and local Soviet forces were planning to use them in such an event. Any such activity could have easily escalated to major war, and nuclear war. In both of these situations, we have possible American miscalculations leading towards a low-level nuclear reply, with unknown consequences.
  
  
• 1983, the Able Archer exercises. On the heels of very militaristic American language, NATO and the US ran a full-scale mock war situation in Western Europe, flying very close to the Soviet borders. What they did not realize is that the Soviets were terribly afraid of an American first-strike attack, and thought the exercise might be in fact one flying under a benign cover. Any accidents or mishaps, or even just misinterpretations of data by the USSR, could easily have led to some kind of nuclear altercation (probably low level, initially), which could have escalated. (1983 is also the year that Stanislav Petrov may have averted nuclear war by disregarding the incorrect results of a Soviet early warning system.)
  
  In general, both of these situations share common characteristics. Both involve moments of jitteriness, compounded by physical proximity, mixed with the common human problems of crossed signals, mistrust, and over-reliance on low-level military officers to make decisions that would affect the whole nation if done poorly. They are also characterized by inadequate intelligence: the US thought it knew what had (and had not) been transferred to Cuba in 1962, but in reality there were many more nukes there than they realized, for example. In 1983, the US poorly understood the Soviet mindset with regards to the NATO exercises.
  
  It is hard to determine which of the above cases is worse, in my mind. What makes the 1983 case potentially worse is in that both sides were much more nuclear-armed than in 1962 (where the US had many more arms than the USSR), and the delivery systems were at a point where both were in a use-it-or-lose-it situation (that is, they were fast and accurate, and so if the other side launched a surprise attack first, they could wipe out your nuclear assets very quickly unless you too replied in kind — and with very little time to make that call). But more to the point, in 1983 the United States was, in retrospect, remarkably ignorant of how jangled the Soviets were feeling, and did things that to the US looked like regular military exercises, but to the Soviets looked like a preliminary for a surprise nuclear attack. The Americans were shocked to find out, later, that the Soviets were taking the harsh militaristic language (which was really just for a domestic political audience, anyway) seriously. This kind of miscalculation is more fundamental than technical errors: it is about the way in which deterrence ultimately devolves down to human psychology in complex and very individual ways.
  
  On the Cuban Missile Crisis, see Michael Dobbs, _One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War; on the 1983 war scare, see David Hoffman, The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy_.
  
  There were, arguably, other "close calls" — accidents, bad early warning signals, mishaps. But the above two are generally regarded as the closest with regards to full nuclear war, because of the likelihood of escalation and all-out attack.

The Sea Rover's Practice: Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630-1730.

Well I just ordered Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer which is about the spy who recruited Aldrich Ames after a recommendation from a friend.

Some that I have found recommendations from on other subreddits include:

• One Minute to Midnight
  
• The Dead Hand
  
• Betrayal: The Story of Aldrich Ames, an American Spy

I highly recommend Aviva Chomsky's A History of the Cuban Revolution, it's a fantastic, readable introduction.

One Minute to Midnight Not sure how scholarly this book is, but I read it, and it has perspective from all three sides of the conflict.

You say that so confidently?...

I suggest some of these books:

Richard Gott: Cuba- a new history

Aviva Chomsky: A History of the Cuban Revolution

Marifeli Perez-Stable - The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy, 2nd Edition

Eduardo Galeano: Open Veins of Latin America

Lars Schoultz: That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution

Well, I think you need to understand the potential bias those Cubans may have. IIRC most of those Cubans are comparatively wealthy families that left after the Batista regime was overthrown and they nationalized their businesses. In other words, many left before actually really experiencing living in the socialistic Cuba. For a down to earth analysis of how everyday Cubans live, I'd strongly recommend Inside El Barrio.

As long as we keep putting people in office willing to out pace the rest of the world in defense spending, any aspiration to overthrow our government is laughable. defense spending

As far as having an open mind, I suggest you read Cuba Libre l just finished it and am forming my opinion based on a successful demonstration of revolution.

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No, this was a separate incident, detailed in One Minute to Midnight. This occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I'm sorry that I can't recall the name of the pilot at the moment. It was declassified after the end of the cold war.

>Basically us demands offensive missiles to be taken back. Negotiations. Russia says ok. Setup a Russia - US hotline. Doesn't sound very traumatic.

What? Jesus. No. That's all you got from it? The world came dangerously close to nuclear war and it was only thanks to the thinking of some very smart, level-headed men and a bit of luck that we're even here today.

Perfect example -- Google Khrushchev's second letter. (EDIT: Actually, this is a pretty good link on it.) Kennedy ignored it instead of getting antagonized even more. Do you really think Trump could do the same?

Finally, and I'm not meaning this as a slight against you -- but they really don't teach this in school anymore? If not, I strongly recommend you read One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs. Read it and imagine Trump in Kennedy's shoes. And then imagine if we would seriously be here today.

The cover of a history of tobacco in China shows a "bowl" that looks like a big box.

Which books have you already read and found valuable?

My recommendations:

"Cuban Revelations: Behind the Scenes in Havana" by Marc Frank


"Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know" by Julia E. Sweig


This one is kind of dry and academic, but I found the part about agricultural policy particularly illuminating: "Cuban Economic and Social Development: Policy Reforms and Challenges in the 21st Century".

I also have "The Revolution Under Raul Castro: A Contemporary Cuba Reader" and "Back Channel To Havana: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana" but haven't started them yet. They look promising.

The history of grog is pretty interesting. This section of the wikipedia article was pulled almost wholecloth from The Sea Rover's Practice, which is a great book, if a bit dry.

British sailors came to be called limeys because the citrus juice of choice was lemons, until inconvenient political alliances limited access to the fruit, and the Brits switched to limes.

Edit: Sadly, the URL encoding doesn't seem to work. Sorry =(

Yeah. While the Russians developed the first ICBMs, technically (The R7), it was impractical as a weapon. And while Khrushchev claimed that the USSR was rolling out missiles "like sausages", the reality is that they barely had any in the early 60s.

The R7 was replaced with new developments like the R16 (Which was the first really functional ICBM for the USSR), and by the late 60s-early 70s, the gap had closed enough that MAD was a real thing. But in 1962, the USSR would have been blown off the face of the earth. The US would have been hurt, but probably would have survived.

Source: Mostly from Red Moon Rising, and One Minute to Midnight. Pop-History, but both really good books, and well worth reading.

Like this one?

This reminds me, whilst we are on the subject of bookstore purchases, I would highly reccommmend every American household buys a copy of this

> You first said it was political backlash, now you are saying that it was Hezbollah using civilians as human shields that didn't allow Israel to win.

No, no. I said it was political backlash and I still stand by it. Israel got political backlash because of civilian casualties. Militarily, they were winning against Hezbollah. Hezbollah could not capture 1 cm of Israeli lands while Israel was getting deeper and deeper into Lebanese territory. Israel retreated, but not because Hezbollah was too strong for them in any kind.

> And your argument that Israel has to massacre all lebanese Twelver shiite to win is just flawed, Hezbollah didn't have more than 5 thousand troops in 2006.

You can't kill all those 5 000 troops because they are guerilla fighters. That means that they hide in homes, schools, etc. That's how guerilla warfare takes place. You hide among the population to ambush the conventional army. This is a book for you to start with:

http://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Warfare-Ernesto-Che-Guevara/dp/149299748X

> Lebanon was a big loser. Hezbollah not so much, they already have twice the rockets they had in 2006. Israel clearly didn't "lose", but they set objectives that they failed to achieve.

Hezbollah was militarily a loser. They got crushed, couldn't patrol their posts anymore openly like they used and had to use a big portion of their missiles/rockets.

The fact that they doubled their rockets now doesnt change that. If I lose my car today, but buy a new one next year, I still lost my old care despite having a new one.

https://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Warfare-Ernesto-Che-Guevara/dp/149299748X

The absolute best history books? I can't say for sure, but here's some books on left-wing dictatorships:
smile.amazon.com/Visions-Power-Cuba-Revolution-Envisioning-ebook/dp/B009LPY4RK/
smile.amazon.com/Stalin-Paradoxes-1878-1928-Stephen-Kotkin-ebook/dp/B00INIXPYE/
Dictatorship isn't a right-wing or left-wing only thing. Either side of the aisle can go extreme.
And if you want to talk about moralism and media censorship, I'm pretty sure all that Tipper Gore mess wasn't Republicans. j/s

OMG I found some too:

http://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Warfare-Ernesto-Che-Guevara/dp/149299748X