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Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image. By Michael Casey. New York: Vintage Books, 2009. Pp. 388. $15.95 paper.
The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution. By Daniel P. Erikson. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008. Pp. xiii + 352. $28.00 cloth.
Political Disaffection in Cuba's Revolution and Exodus. By Sylvia Pedraza. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xix + 359. $28.99 paper.
Looking Forward: Comparative Perspectives on Cuba's Transition. Edited by Marifeli Pérez-Stable. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Pp. xx + 332. $27.00 paper.
Cuba in the Shadow of Change: Daily Life in the Twilight of the Revolution. By Amelia Rosenberg Weinreb. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009. Pp. 272. $69.95 cloth.
Cuban Currency: The Dollar and Special Period Fiction. By Esther Whitfield. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Pp. 217. $22.50 paper.
Revolutionary Cuba's golden age ended in 1988-1990, when the former Soviet Union adopted world prices in its trade with Cuba, ceased new lending, and discontinued its subsidization of the Cuban economy. The result was the economic meltdown of 1989-1994. In 1992, President Fidel Castro labeled the new époque the "Special Period in Time of Peace," a title that has, in 2010, lasted almost two decades. Many outside observers have imagined that Cuba would in time follow Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in making a transition toward a more market-oriented economic system and perhaps a Western style of pluralistic democracy. This has not happened. The modest economic changes of the early 1990s have not led to sustained reform. Political reform has been almost undetectable. At times, rapid change has seemed inevitable and imminent. But at others, it has appeared that gerontocratic paralysis might endure well into the 2010s. Change will undoubtedly occur, but its trajectory, timing, and character are diffi cult, if not impossible, to predict. When a process of transition does arrive, it will likely be unexpected, confused, and erratic, and it will probably not fi t the patterns of Eastern Europe, China, or Vietnam.
The books included in this review focus mainly on changing realities during the Special Period and on the nature of prospective change, thus contributing valuably to the understanding of a range of issues in Cuba's existence...