Cuba for Beginners

Good book. Fun and informative read. I’ve studied the Cuban Revolution in the past but learned a few new things here. Plus it’s funny which is a bonus.The reason the United States hates the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro is purely because the Revolution took the land back from US control (75 percent of the land was owned by US corporations) and gave it back to the people in the process eradicating poverty, segregation, racial/gender/and disability discrimination.Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in the Americas, the first country in the world to end mother to child transmission of HIV as a public health problem, plus many other accomplishments including being named the #1 country in the world to be developing sustainably.Not to mention Cuba’s medical aid to the world: beating Ebola in west Africa, HIV help around the world, responding to every natural disaster in the Caribbean and the world. Aiding Vietnam with food and medical aid after the US killed and maimed millions there plus fighting Apartheid South Africa etc etc.What Cuba, a small island nation has accomplished in the last 60 years in amazing. Regardless of the CIA’s continued smear campaign, Cuba, the Revolution, and Fidel Castro remain heroic to the Global South.I recommend this book to all Americans.

This book is fantastic. It is a collection of comics about Cuba and the Cuban Revolution by Rius, a political cartoonist from Mexico. This book was published in 1970 (and is thus a bit dated), but it was meant to be an introduction to Cuba, so for people who don't know much about Cuban history or the Revolution, this is still a great (and hilarious) introduction. Though the subject manner is really quite heavy, the brilliance of Rius' satire is that it is such a fun read. As someone who has studied Cuba extensively, there wasn't any new information for me in here, however, the comics themselves were both brilliant and beautiful and I may just frame a few of the particularly great ones. This would be a great/fun gift for any scholars you know who are interested in Cuba.

Fun and informative

this is an excellent summary of the revolution, the benefits it brought about, common misconceptions and its place in history.

Excellent read.

I bought this way back in the late 1970s when I was much more liberal/leftist than I am now (I am a Middle of the Road indpendent) when my parents were paying for my college education, rent and utilities. A rosy, idealistic Leftist view of Cuba. HMMM. Why I am seeing Michael Moore, all of the sudden ? Having just reread this book (which, by the way, does portray an excellent / brief history of Cuba before Castro) I realize how naively idealistic Rius (and other Latin American or American leftists, for that matter) are about Castro's Cuba.40 years after he wrote Cuba for Beginners, Rius has not uttered a peep about how most Cubans earn about 20 dollars a month, how their free medical care often excludes basics like aspirin or safe running water in the hospitals, and Cuba now has about the lowest per capita income in Latin America, as well as the lowest ownership of telephones (only 15 percent of homes have a phone, and only 6 percent own cell phones..lower than dirt poor Haiti..25 percent of families have 1 or more cell phones there), or cars (fewer Cuban households have cars now than in 1959).I sugguest if you are going to read this, you also read "Against all Hope" by Armando Valladares, on how he was tortured in Castro's prisons, including ordeals such as having to swim in raw sewage.Or read Humberto Fontova's book, "Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant" about how Fidel has totally ruined the economy of what was once the most developed and modern Nation in Latin America (before 1959). One interesting stat Fontova gives in that in 1955, Cuba had a higher percentage of homes with tv than France, Italy, Japan, or Germany.Of course, if I were to meet Rius, and mention any of the counterarguments by Fontova, he would simply blame everything on the US Embargo.Yeah, right.As Ronald Reagan said back in 1984 (addressing a Cuban Exile audience in Miami)CUBA SI. CASTRO NO.