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Dateline Havana
Expertly researched and deftly reported, Dateline Havana is a probing exposé of U.S. policy and the future of Cuba on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. Covering art, music, and Cuban politics, Reese Erlich creates a tableau that is at once moving and informative.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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August 20, 2026More a work of journalism with a decent amount of opinion than the straightforward history I was expecting. The history is interesting but quite shallow overview.
The author is sympathetic, perhaps more sympathetic than myself, to the Cuban government but willing to admit its faults. He highlights many failings on both sides of the relationship but obviously focuses on the U.S. side of things. A few of the claims seem to me a little unsubstantiated based on a cursory search particularly about U.S. covert germ warfare, but I could be totally wrong. I am no expert there. Regardless, the tendency with books like this can be to say a horrible thing the U.S. did but not give any background or context as to the thinking or justification behind it. Now it may be your opinion, as is mine, that some of those things can’t be justified regardless of the circumstances, such as state sponsored terrorist activities and assassinations, but it gives no impression of the thought put into it or reasons it occurred. This is exacerbated when the Cuban government’s mistakes are given a huge amount of background and justification. That gives it more the tone of polemic than analysis in some places
That being said, this is no work of pure ideology or mindless America-bashing, there are many, many legitimate grievances against U.S. policy to Cuba and this is a pretty decent overview from that side. The blockade that’s been kept in place despite not working, and everyone in power knowing it isn’t working, is a particularly infuriating example. Additionally, in good leftist-book fashion, I even learned of a new U.S. intervention that I’d never heard of before: Reagan’s invasion of Grenada! Living in the immediate backyard of a global superpower genuinely sounds like hell. The author also does a very honest appraisal of the systemic failings of the Cuban government in the latter chapters which show a great degree of depth and nuance.
The exceptional sections where I learned the most were regarding the Cuba lobby. My assumption was that this was simply a key demographic given its political positioning that politicians had to compete for with harsh on Cuba policies. That’s a part of it but this book showed me that its also a vast web of NGOs and interests groups (self-consciously modelled on AIPAC), throwing their weight and money around as well as receiving funding in return from various government agencies. These seem to act as clientelist networks rather than actual NGOs, with very little money actually making it to the org’s stated purpose. That is a far more complicated and interesting story.
There are large sections on the authors own experience and history with Cuba, which usually I would not care for, but this guy’s life is actually quite interesting and he is obviously passionate about Cuba and its people so that was very interesting to me.
The author is sympathetic, perhaps more sympathetic than myself, to the Cuban government but willing to admit its faults. He highlights many failings on both sides of the relationship but obviously focuses on the U.S. side of things. A few of the claims seem to me a little unsubstantiated based on a cursory search particularly about U.S. covert germ warfare, but I could be totally wrong. I am no expert there. Regardless, the tendency with books like this can be to say a horrible thing the U.S. did but not give any background or context as to the thinking or justification behind it. Now it may be your opinion, as is mine, that some of those things can’t be justified regardless of the circumstances, such as state sponsored terrorist activities and assassinations, but it gives no impression of the thought put into it or reasons it occurred. This is exacerbated when the Cuban government’s mistakes are given a huge amount of background and justification. That gives it more the tone of polemic than analysis in some places
That being said, this is no work of pure ideology or mindless America-bashing, there are many, many legitimate grievances against U.S. policy to Cuba and this is a pretty decent overview from that side. The blockade that’s been kept in place despite not working, and everyone in power knowing it isn’t working, is a particularly infuriating example. Additionally, in good leftist-book fashion, I even learned of a new U.S. intervention that I’d never heard of before: Reagan’s invasion of Grenada! Living in the immediate backyard of a global superpower genuinely sounds like hell. The author also does a very honest appraisal of the systemic failings of the Cuban government in the latter chapters which show a great degree of depth and nuance.
The exceptional sections where I learned the most were regarding the Cuba lobby. My assumption was that this was simply a key demographic given its political positioning that politicians had to compete for with harsh on Cuba policies. That’s a part of it but this book showed me that its also a vast web of NGOs and interests groups (self-consciously modelled on AIPAC), throwing their weight and money around as well as receiving funding in return from various government agencies. These seem to act as clientelist networks rather than actual NGOs, with very little money actually making it to the org’s stated purpose. That is a far more complicated and interesting story.
There are large sections on the authors own experience and history with Cuba, which usually I would not care for, but this guy’s life is actually quite interesting and he is obviously passionate about Cuba and its people so that was very interesting to me.
April 25, 2011
Erlich does a great job of spelling out the US and Cuba's current state of affairs, as well as taking a few chapters to describe Cuban culture in general. While the author does show both sides of Cuba's politics (the Communist Party in Cuba versus the Cuban Lobby in Miami), some readers may think he favors some opinions more than others - to me this clearly came from the author's life time experience in Cuba.
March 10, 2010
a good overview of US-Cuba relations since Castro - what a sad tale of inappropriate sanctions and unfair policy - one can only applaud Castro for holding out on principle, though it would have been nice had his people suffered less as a result of the US sanctions. an easy quick read and worth knowing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews