Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Seven Threads in the Labyrinth -- Part I: Idealism, 1952-1970 -- 1. History Will Absolve Me: The Rebellion, 1952-1958 -- The Mulatto Overseer -- Castro, the Moncada Attack, and the 26 of July Movement -- The Granma Expedition and the Santiago Revolt -- The Sierra and the Llano -- Violence Escalates -- The Regime Unravels -- Was Cuba Ripe for Revolution? Was a Revolution Necessary? -- 2. Fatherland or Death!: Setting the Revolution's Foundations, 1959-1962 -- Guerrillas in Power -- The Colossal Neighbor to the North -- Demise of the Moderates and Rise of the Fidelista Communists -- Mass Organizations and Social Goals -- Revolution and Culture -- Marching toward Socialism against the Backdrop of the Cold War -- The Opposition: Flight or Fight -- Storm over the Bay of Pigs -- Mongoose to Missiles -- The Economy Falters -- A Balance Sheet, 1959-62 -- 3. The Ten Million Will Happen: Expanding Socialism, 1963-1970 -- Recession and the Sugar Gamble -- Conflicting Partners, Contending Models, Competing Voices -- Revolutionary Internationalism -- Sino-Guevarism without China and without Guevara -- Homophobia, "Out of the Game" Poets, and Revolutionary Art -- Still Only Ninety Miles Apart? -- "Sucropsychosis" and the Ten-Million-Ton Harvest -- The First Decade on Balance -- Part II: Personalistic Institutionalization, 1971-1990 -- 4. We Must Turn the Setback into Victory: Sovietization, Institutionalization, and the Expanding Cuban Diaspora, 1971-1985 -- Sovietization of the Economy -- Political Institutionalization -- Persistent Repression and the Emergence of Dissent -- Cuba as an International Power -- The Cuba Outside Cuba -- The Mass Exodus of El Mariel -- Still in Revolution?.

5. Now We Are Going to Build Socialism: Crisis and Rectification, 1986-1990 -- Between the Cold War and a New World Order -- Economic Recession -- Rectification of Errors -- Political Purges and Pseudo Glasnost -- Part III: Survival, 1991-2013 -- 6. Socialism or Death!: The Long Special Period, 1991-2000 -- The Onset of the Special Period -- The State Confronts the Crisis: Structural Reforms -- From Embargo to Blockade? -- No es fácil: Cubans Endure the Special Period -- The Counter-Plantation: Dissidence, Jineterismo, and Cultural Transgression -- "So near and yet so foreign": The Ongoing Havana-Washington-Miami Drama -- The Cuban Diaspora Revisited -- Survival at Any Cost, but at What Price? -- 7. This Revolution Can Destroy Itself: Cuba at the Dawn of the New Millennium, 2001-2011 -- Cuba and the World -- The Lingering Little Cold War -- The Domestic Economy -- Closed for Repairs -- El Comandante in His Labyrinth -- The Interregnum -- Raúl Castro's Beans and Cannons Rule -- Twenty-First-Century Mambises -- Cuba in Transition? -- 8. Rectify and Change . . . All That Should Be Rectified and Changed: Transitions, Elections, and Successions, 2011-2013 -- Sixth PCC Congress and the Lineamientos of 2011 -- Five Key Elections within Six Months -- The Blog Heard around the World -- Conclusion: Rewinding the Threads in the Labyrinth -- The Pendular Revolution -- The Art of Triangulation -- The Longest Ninety Miles -- The Revolution's Third Man -- The Persistent Plantation -- An Island on Horseback -- Many Cubas -- Epilogue: You Are My Friend -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.