The Long Night of Dark Intent
A Half Century of Cuban Communism
Latin American Studies
Description
The Cuban Revolution of 1959 was a benchmark of triumph and a harbinger of tragedy to come. Rather than herald a new era of Cuba joining the world community of nations as a paragon of democracy as many fervently hoped and believed it would, it became instead a new stage in authoritarian rule in the Western hemisphere.
For more than a half century since then Cuba has been defined by the capacity of a single family to command and determine the fate of a nation—and to do so with a minimum of opposition. Incredibly, even those professing adhesion to democratic norms have been ready to forgive the dictator his excesses. This volume explains the theory and practice of this absence of internal opposition and the persistence of external support for the Castro family and its entourage.
The Long Night of Dark Intent is chronological in order, with the author indicating major points in each of the five decades covered. The volume covers five centers of system analysis: economics, politics, society, military, and ideology. Who or what "determines" events and decisions is the stuff of real history. It is precisely due to variability in causal chains in society that we have huge variance in levels of predictability. The course of the Cuban Revolution gives strong support for such an approach to the Castro Era. This is a unique, unflinching account with a strong emphasis on the importance of U.S. policy decisions over time.
Editorial Reviews
“Horowitz’s keen intellect and acerbic style are on full display.”
– Joshua H. Nadel, Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews
"The story of the Castro regime through the Salinization lens is not a pretty one. Horowitz's defense of his position necessarily involves detailed exposition of the violent, repressive side of the Cuban Revolution, including many events that have typically eluded the gaze of sympathetic foreign visitors, including many foreign scholars. The book is rife with descriptions of personalistic dictatorial rule in Cuba, as well as ongoing repression of dissent, destruction of civil society, militarization, Soviet sponsored export of the Revolution throughout the Third World, purges, show trials, and widespread human rights abuses...For those unafraid to confront Trosty-eque truths, The Long Night of Dark Intent offers a wealth of historical material that has not been previously compiled, combined with engagingly forthright sociological analysis."
– Katherine Hirschfeld, Human Rights Review
"Horowitz exemplifies Raymond Aron's realization that even though objectivity might be impossible for the human species, fairness is not. Indeed, the latter can be attained by maintaining rigorous distinctions and comparisons and by concretely defining terms. The Long Night of Dark Intent illustrates this point. Like Robert Frost's "night of dark intent" socio-political canvas will rank always as a trustworthy and necessary resource."
– Laura Ymayo, Tartakoff, Society
"The Long Night of Dark Intent is superb. There are few people who have a grasp of what happened in Cuba during the past fifty years like Horowitz. The division that he makes by decades is very pertinent."
– Ernesto F. Betancourt, First Director (ret) Radio Marti, United States Information Agency
The great virtue of The Long Night of Dark Intent is to explore the facets of totalitarian dictatorship, and the inevitable joining of Communism and the autocratic state. Castro's dual affinities with militarism on the one hand and populism on the other, has led over time to statist solutions that exceed the bounds of party organization. Horowitz offers an invaluable window into social science activity about Cuba during this same period.
– Howard Schneiderman, Professor of Sociology, Lafayette College The Long Night of Dark Intent: A Half Century of Cuban Communism constitutes a magnificent compilation of Horowitz's writings on Cuba.
– Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Professor of Economics. The University of Pittsburgh
The Long Night of Dark Intent is not only the authoritative guide to tragedies unleashed by Castroism in all its phases but a moving and instructive account of the author's own anti-totalitarian odyssey since the early 1960's. Each of those moments or levels of the book are of real interest and importance. Horowitz makes plain the feeble, tentative nature of the social order imposed on things by those who would be gods.
– Daniel J. Mahoney, Professor of Political Science, Assumption College
“The Long Night of Dark Intent is an enlightening book by a learned man who has probably done more to promote a scholarly understanding of post 1959 Cuba than anyone else in the United States.”
– Dario Fernandez-Morera, Chronicles
