Unvanquished: Cuba's Resistance to Fidel Castro

Rating:
Summary: A Much Needed Study
Review: A concise, but comprehensive look at anti-Castro resistance by Cubans inside and outside the island from 1959 to the present. Encinosa tells an important story that is rarely known outside of the Cuban exile community, as such it is an invaluable study for serious Cuba watchers.

Of special interest, from a military history perspective, was the chapter on the mid-60's anti-Castro guerilla campaign centered in the Escambray mountains of central Cuba. This story is virtually unknown to the outside world, yet captures the courage and defiance to Communist rule, while detailing the uncompromising and brutal tactics Castro used in putting it down. I only wish that a more detailed examination of the Escambray campaign could someday be published. The book flows easily through the various decades, using numerous first-hand accounts of the bravery of those who resisted and the savagery of those who repressed them. Readers will also realize that many of those who took up arms against Castro, had previously supported him. Encinosa also details little known facts about Cuban domestic opposition to their overseas wars. Lastly, a discussion on resistance in the last decade brings to light the viciousness of the Castro regime, best captured in the comments of an individual who tried to set up an 'independent library'.

This book is a great eye-opener that reveals the regime for what it is - repressive and unpopular. Very necessary in light of the constant, and effective propaganda that comes from the island as it tries to influence the more gullible and economic minded sectors of the US. A relevant read given today's developing events.

Rating:
Summary: A Much Needed Study
Review: A concise, but comprehensive look at anti-Castro resistance by Cubans inside and outside the island from 1959 to the present. Encinosa tells an important story that is rarely known outside of the Cuban exile community, as such it is an invaluable study for serious Cuba watchers.

Of special interest, from a military history perspective, was the chapter on the mid-60's anti-Castro guerilla campaign centered in the Escambray mountains of central Cuba. This story is virtually unknown to the outside world, yet captures the courage and defiance to Communist rule, while detailing the uncompromising and brutal tactics Castro used in putting it down. I only wish that a more detailed examination of the Escambray campaign could someday be published. The book flows easily through the various decades, using numerous first-hand accounts of the bravery of those who resisted and the savagery of those who repressed them. Readers will also realize that many of those who took up arms against Castro, had previously supported him. Encinosa also details little known facts about Cuban domestic opposition to their overseas wars. Lastly, a discussion on resistance in the last decade brings to light the viciousness of the Castro regime, best captured in the comments of an individual who tried to set up an 'independent library'.

This book is a great eye-opener that reveals the regime for what it is - repressive and unpopular. Very necessary in light of the constant, and effective propaganda that comes from the island as it tries to influence the more gullible and economic minded sectors of the US. A relevant read given today's developing events.

Rating:
Summary: Cuban Martyrs
Review: This book will likely be dismissed by the Castrophiles on the academic left who paint the Cuban exile community as a collection of ignorant fascists. Those who approach the text with moral sobriety and decency, however, will be moved by Mr. Encinosa's tribute to the Cuban martyrs who were either murdered, or suffered in Castro's gulags, while having been ignored by the world press. The romantic delusion that Cuba represents a good faith attempt to create a socialist society while defending itself against evil capitalists has been refuted over and over again by the brutality and mendacity of the system. Like Che Guevara's false archetype of the saintly revolutionary, the revolution itself was a pathetic lie and Cuba eventually became the playground for Castro's egocentric fantasies. I should know. During the revolution my father fought against Batista in the Escambray front and my maternal grandparents ran one of the largest safe houses on the island, which offered refuge to many who later became ranking members of the regime. Fortunately, my family recognized the nature of the beast early on and we fled paradise in 1965.

Among the many stories that Mr. Encinosa recounts, one that Americans should become familiar with is the imprisonment of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, an Afro-Cuban physician who is currently wasting away in a Cuban prison. While the left is busy denouncing the detention of Islamic radicals at Guantanamo, Dr. Biscet, a Christian pro-life activist and advocate of Dr. Martin Luther King's teachings of nonviolent resistence, is serving a 25 year sentence. He previously served a three year prison sentence for holding a Cuban flag upside down during a press conference. After his conviction on April 7, 2003, Dr. Biscet was placed in solitary confinement in a tiny cell where he was denied sunlight for the first year of his imprisonment. He has been forced to live on handouts from other prisoners because the authorities refused to feed him, he lost several teeth and exists on the verge of starvation. Dr. Biscet's plight is a living synopsis of Castro's experiment in Carribean Stalinism and the motivation for the resistance movements described in the book.

Rating:
Summary: A concise yet complete history of the past 50 years in Cuba
Review: Using primary and secondary sources Enrique Encinosa offers an account of Cuban history from the democratic forces who lived it.

It takes us from the 1950s to the present day in a concise yet detailed manner that lays out the evolving Cuban scene over the past half century.

It is an enjoyable read that grabs you from the first page and keeps you enthralled until the very end. Nevertheless, it leaves you asking the nagging question: what next for the Cuban people?