Our History is Still Being Written
Military history can be a dry topic. One can only find so many angles to the Civil War, World War II or Vietnam, after all. Hence, Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution, one partisan take of Cuba’s military efforts, makes for intriguing history.
No country has captured the American military imagination quite like Cuba. In Cuba is a nation where a ragtag group of revolutionaries arrived on the island, intent on overthrowing Fulgencio Batista, scored a series of key battle victories and an eventual ascension to power as well as export of a socialist ideology to Latin America and Africa. Whether you agree with the Cuban Revolution or not, Our History Is Still Being Written is remarkable in relating the story of such a story, through the eyes of three Chinese-Cubans.
China itself has a unique political history. And the appearance of Chinese immigrants in Cuba is probably worth a volume or two. Some of these issues are related here, but Our History Is Still Being Written primarily talks about the complex issues and backstories that impacted Cuba before and after the Revolution. Class contradictions, resource management and nationalization of industries are just a few of the crises at which the trio of interviewees offers revealing looks. Another bonus is fact many pages cover the lost history of Cuba’s military involvement with kindred political spirits in Angola, Namibia and South Africa. In those three conflicts alone, Cuba invested considerable forces under the guiding principle of furthering internationalism, to varying success. Former Cuban general and book participant Armando Choy and others tell the tales with splashes of pragmatism, not unlike many military history books before them.
However, fair warning: if you are looking for a critical examination of the Cuban Revolution, this book is not the one. While anecdotes of the racism Chinese-Cubans faced and other social problems are noted, Our History Is Still Being Written generally presents a positive picture of the Cuban Revolution. No surprise necessarily, as the publisher is avowedly socialist, but fans of military history books may find this volume incomplete.
