Sad And Luminous Days

In October 1962 school children huddled under their desks and diplomats feverishly negotiated as the world sat on the brink of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the most dangerous moment in modern history and resulted in a changed worldview for the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. In tracing the developments of the missile crisis and beyond, Sad and Luminous Days presents and interprets a heretofore unavailable (and largely unknown) secret speech that Castro delivered to the Cuban leadership in 1968. In it, Castro reflects on the crisis and reveals the distrust and bitterness that characterized Cuban-Soviet relations in 1968. Blight and Brenner frame the annotated speech with an examination of the missile crisis itself, and an analysis of Cuban-Soviet relations between 1962-1968, ending with an epilogue that highlights the lessons the missile crisis offers us in the current search for security and a stable world order. Sad and Luminous Days sheds new light on Cuban-Soviet relations and should be required reading not only for Cold-War scholars and historians, but also for anyone intrigued by the drama of the thirteen momentous days in October 1962.

In tracing the developments of the Cuban Missile Crisis and beyond, this book presents and interprets a heretofore unavailable (and largely unknown) secret speech that Castro delivered to the Cuban leadership in 1968. Blight and Brenner shed new light on Cuban-Soviet relations making Sad and Luminous Days essential not only for Cold-War scholars and historians, but also for anyone intrigued by the drama of the thirteen momentous days in October 1962.

Library Journal

Forty years ago the United States and the Soviet Union came eyeball to eyeball in a dangerous confrontation over missiles in Cuba that, after 13 anxious days, only ended with a big power agreement for reciprocal missile removal in Cuba and in Turkey. Blight and Brenner are, respectively, professors of international relations at Brown and American University with numerous publications to their credit on both Cuba and international relations. No doubt we will soon be inundated with anniversary accounts about this singular event, but the value of the Blight-Brenner book is that it presents the Cuban perspective of these hectic years in extensive detail. Castro was quite displeased that for the most part the Soviets ignored Cuban officials both during and after the missile crisis. This led to a steady deterioration in relations between the two Communist nations. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 further isolated Havana from Moscow. Blight and Brenner believe that an improvement in relations between the United States and Cuba is possible but only if both governments can develop an empathy for the other's international position. After more than four decades of enmity, this is a tall order. This book will provide an important counterpoint to the stream of simplistic books about the missile crisis that are sure to appear. For all collections.-Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

James G. Blight is professor of international relations at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies and is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books on U.S. foreign policy, including five on the Cuban missile crisis. Philip Brenner is professor of international relations at American University in Washington, DC, and chair of American University's Inter-Disciplinary Council on the Americas. A specialist in U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America, he has been engaged in research about U.S.-Cuban relations since 1974.