Reviews
"Paterson...has turned his considerable research energies and narrativeskills to a critical period of relations between the United States andCuba....[Contesting Castro] succeeds admirably...in telling a story that iscrucial to understanding the frigid standoff that has defined relations betweenthe United States and Cuba for the last 30 years."--New York Times BookReview, "Thomas Paterson's fine new book takes us back to the beginning, when Cuba, under Batista behaved as a good little semicolony should, and all was more or less right with the world. Paterson then reconstructs the twists and turns in U.S. policy from 1956 to 1959 and concludes with a tersesummary chapter covering the period from 1960 to the present....Contesting Castro is the best available account of U.S. policy toward the Cuban revolution."--American Quarterly, "A thorough and well-documented analysis by Paterson of how Castro came topower in Cuba and why the United States failed to stop him....This is a careful,well-constructed, well-argued, and essential source."--Kirkus Reviews, "Meticulously researched and well-argued....Fresh and invaluable insights....An exceptional work that deserves to be widely read and distributed."--Canadian Journal of History, Thomas Paterson, in Contesting Castro, details US policy toward Cuba and Castro since the 1950s with the acumen of a respected and widely read diplomatic historian ... His book is a blend of journalism and academic analysis, whose strength lies in fascinating detail culled from US archival sources., "Paterson...has turned his considerable research energies and narrative skills to a critical period of relations between the United States and Cuba....[Contesting Castro] succeeds admirably...in telling a story that is crucial to understanding the frigid standoff that has defined relationsbetween the United States and Cuba for the last 30 years."--New York Times Book Review, "An engaging, lively, well-written account of U.S. - Cuban relations in the broadest sense, between 1956-59. Brings together a lot of disparate and interesting information. A good overview."--Professor Richard J. Walter, Washington University, "A well-written diplomatic history of U.S.-Cuba relations from the Batistaera to the triumph of Castro's revolution."--The Texas Observer, "[A] judicious and thoughtful book....Paterson...makes good use of now-declassified U.S. State Department documents; he supplements them with interviews, exchanges of correspondence and documents from other archives. For the most part, the story is already familiar, but Paterson gives itflesh and blood and the necessary detail missing from previous works....fast-moving and engaging."--The Miami Herald, "Well-told, insightful look at U.S. relations with Castro--private and public--up to triumphs of Revolution."--Max Friedman, University of Colorado, "This well-written, soundly documented narrative--characteristic ofProfessor Paterson's work--describes in full 'a deadly combination of U.S.ignorance and arrogance' that has characterized American policy toward Cuba andFidel Castro since the 1950s.As one who has long believed that America's Cuba policy could scarcely havebeen more ill-informed and self-defeating from Eisenhower and Kennedy to thepresent day, I urge all American patriots to read this riveting, realisticaccount. Professor Paterson tells the truth about one of the most embarrassingand costly chapters in U.S. diplomatic history."--former Senator GeorgeMcGovern, "A magnificent study. Paterson has made an important contribution to theunderstanding of an important period in Cuba-U.S. relations. The book isespecially timely, and required reading for all who contemplace the past and thefuture of Cuba-U.S. relations."--Louis A. Perez, Jr., author of Cuba and theUnited States: Ties of Singular Intimacy, "[A] judicious and thoughtful book....Paterson...makes good use ofnow-declassified U.S. State Department documents; he supplements them withinterviews, exchanges of correspondence and documents from other archives. Forthe most part, the story is already familiar, but Paterson gives it flesh andblood and the necessary detail missing from previous works....fast-moving andengaging."--The Miami Herald, "[A] well-constructed, persuasively written, and richly detailed account of two governments and political cultures from the early 1950s until the victory of Fidel Castro's guerrilla forces in 1959."--The Americas, "[A]ccess to previously classified information (patchy though this may be at times) has enabled Professor Paterson to write incomparably the best account of why the United States was unable to respond to the Cuban challenge except negatively, and thus came to be saddled with its mostintractable foreign policy problem....[S]uperb, thorough and judicious study."--International Affairs, "His research in American and English-language sources is exemplary....Paterson is at his best in delineating the complicated processes by which American policy was formed and in tracing the events that led inexorably to the failure of that policy."--The Journal of American History, "He succeeds admirably...in telling a story that is crucial to understanding the frigid 'standoff' between the two countries."--The New York Times Book Review, "Central questions of U.S. foreign policy--how and why does the UnitedStates define and react to revolutionary upheavals--are explored in ContestingCastro by one of our most highly respected and widely read diplomatichistorians. Paterson asks the specific questions: what can we learn from FidelCastro's astonishing rise to power in a country long known as an informal U.S.colony? Paterson answers in a book that will become standard on the subject, abook--based largely on previously classified sources--that demonstrates a suregrasp on this fascinating, instructive story."--Walter LaFeber, author ofInevitable Revolutions: The U.S. in Central America, "What distinguishes Paterson's book from a plethora of recent works onCastro and Cuba is its reexamination of the role of the United States in howCastro came to power. Using thorough documentation, much of it obtained fromFreedom of Information Act requests, the author explores the Cubanrevolutionaries' perceptions of the United States and U.S. officials' views ofCastro....Highly recommended."--Library Journal, "Succeeds admirably...in telling a story that is crucial to understanding the frigid standoff that has defined relations between the United States and Cuba for the last 30 years."--New York Times Book Review "Well-written [and] soundly documented....Riveting."--George McGovern
