Lexington Books
Pages: 324
•
Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-1-4985-0659-5 • Hardback • May 2015 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
978-1-4985-0660-1 • eBook • May 2015 • $122.50 • (£95.00)
Joanna Swanger is associate professor and director of the Peace and Global Studies Program at Earlham College.
Introduction: Rebel Lands of Cuba: The Campesino Struggles of Oriente and Escambray, 1934-1974
Chapter One: Setting the Scene: Life at the Local Level, 1934-1958
Chapter Two: Guajiro, Redeemer of the Nation: White Masculinity and State Formation, 1934-1952
Chapter Three: Organization and Collective Resistance in Oriente, 1934-1956
Chapter Four: Atomized Land Battles in Escambray, 1934-1952
Chapter Five: The Insurrection
Chapter Six: Oriente: The Revolutionary Showcase
Chapter Seven: Counter-revolution in Escambray: Interregnum and Reconquest
Epilogue: The Grupo Teatro Escambray
Rebel Lands of Cuba stands out on a number of levels.... Rebel Lands of Cuba is characterized by clear, accessible, and engaging prose and rests on an impressive amount of research, including Cuban archival records in Havana, Cienfuegos, Trinidad, and Santiago de Cuba.... Swanger makes a convincing case to explain the diverging trajectories of the two rebellious regions after 1959.... [I]t should be required reading for anyone interested not only in Cuban and Caribbean history, but also peasant studies, state formation, and (counter)revolution.
— New West Indian Guide
Swanger’s Rebel Lands of Cuba is a ground-breaking work on the history of the Cuban revolution. It is a truly original analysis grounded in regional archives, and revealing the distinct political economy and social fabric in Oriente and in the Escambray. Swanger's book demonstrates the contingency and competing definitions of 'revolution,' social reform, and counter-revolution. It makes a tremendous contribution to the historiography of the Cuban revolution and regional Cuban history.
— Jana Lipman, Tulane University
Swanger’s brilliantly-researched study documents and contrasts the fascinating “revolutionary” and “counterrevolutionary” stories of rural residents from Cuba’s most important coffee-producing regions—Oriente in the East and Escambray in the West. She builds an extraordinarily convincing case that Oriente’s historical experience positioned collectively-organized peasants well to become a revolutionary showcase after 1959 whereas Escambray peasants’ embrace of traditional race, gender, and class hierarchies embodied in individualistic “guajiro” nationalism worked during and after the 1933 Revolution but proved to be their undoing after 1959.
— Gillian McGillivray, Glendon College, York University