With this book, Margaret Randall wishes to reclaim the term “exporting revolution” from its Cold War connotations by which the United States denigrated revolutionary Cuba for intervening in the internal affairs of its neighboring republics. She replaces it with a more contemporary meaning of international solidarity through “the Revolution's extraordinary humanitarian aid and disaster relief” (p. 1). Indeed, this is a story worth telling. The revolutionary government since the 1970s has diverted scarce economic resources not only to send troops to Africa but also to dispatch Cuban educators and medical personnel to many poor countries of the global South.
Randall has assembled wonderful details about Cuba's missions abroad. Her book contains interviews that she carried out with returning doctors, nurses, and teachers. Especially poignant is Randall's interview with Nancy Alonso, who went to Ethiopia while the Berlin Wall still stood and returned to a Cuba in economic decline after the...
