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Javier Figueroa de Cardenas,
Miami FL: Ediciones Universal, 2022. 723 pp. (Paper US$46.95)
El sueno Inconcluso is a fascinating study of one of the most important anti-Castro groups of the early 1960s, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil (dre). Javier Figueroa de Cardenas, a retired professor from the University of Puerto Rico, was involved with the dre as a young teenager and has remained close to its former members over the years. But this is not a memoir or participant account. Figueroa has conducted exhaustive research using declassified CIA documents, the group's archived papers in the University of Miami library, and several private collections, as well as extensive interviews, and other new sources. The result is a meticulously researched, engagingly written, and analytically nuanced reconstruction of the dre's history that combines the access of an insider with the critical eye of a scholar.
While anchored in a detailed analysis of the dre, the book is more than a history of one anti-Castro group. It gives us broad insight into the epic conflict unleashed by Cuba's 1959 Revolution, offering important findings that will be of interest to historians of Cuba, U.S.-Cuban relations, and U.S. foreign policy. Figueroa's discussion of...