Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know
Julia Sweig
February 25, 2010
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
The United States has been at odds with Cuba since 1959, but relations are beginning to thaw under the Obama administration. This tiny island nation has been the subject of fascination, mistrust and conspiracy theories for decades. Is America ready for a new era of engagement?
With her new book, Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, author Julia Sweig cuts through the rhetoric and myths to offer an authoritative and evenhanded look at Cuba's politics, its thorny relationship with the United States and its shifting role in the global community.
Sweig has toured the island's prisons, lived with Cuban families following the collapse of the Soviet Union, conducted research in government archives and interviewed hundreds of Cubans over the last two decades.
She shared her insights at a recent Milken Institute Forum, touching on issues such as human rights, the effectiveness of the isolation strategy, the U.S. presence at Guantánamo Bay, how the Castro regime survived the collapse of communism in Europe, relations with Venezuela and Cuba's future after Fidel.
Julia Sweig is the Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of Inside the Cuban Revolution (winner of the AHA Herbert Feis award for the best book of the year by an independent scholar) and Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century.
This Forum was part of our effort to present multiple perspectives on current business and public policy issues.
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