Fighting Over Fidel : The New York Intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution

New York in the 1960s was a hotbed for progressive causes of every stripe, including women's liberation, civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War--and the Cuban Revolution. __Fighting over Fidel__ brings this turbulent cultural moment to life by telling the story of the New York intellectuals who championed and opposed Castro's revolution. Setting his narrative against the backdrop of the ideological confrontation of the Cold War and the breakdown of relations between Washington and Havana, Rafael Rojas examines the lives and writings of such figures as Waldo Frank, Carleton Beals, C. Wright Mills, Allen Ginsberg, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, and Jose Yglesias. He describes how Castro's Cuba was hotly debated in publications such as the __New York Times__, __Village Voice__, __Monthly Review__, and __Dissent__, and how Cuban socialism became a rallying cry for groups such as the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the Hispanic Left. __Fighting over Fidel__ shows how intellectuals in New York interpreted and wrote about the Cuban experience, and how the Left's enthusiastic embrace of Castro's revolution ended in bitter disappointment by the close of the explosive decade of the 1960s. How New York intellectuals interpreted and wrote about Castro's revolution in the 1960s New York in the 1960s was a hotbed for progressive causes of every stripe, including women's liberation, civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War—and the Cuban Revolution. Fighting over Fidel brings this turbulent cultural moment to life by telling the story of the New York intellectuals who championed and opposed Castro's revolution. Setting his narrative against the backdrop of the ideological confrontation of the Cold War and the breakdown of relations between Washington and Havana, Rafael Rojas examines the lives and writings of such figures as Waldo Frank, Carleton Beals, C. Wright Mills, Allen Ginsberg, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, Eldridge Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, and Jose Yglesias. He describes how Castro's Cuba was hotly debated in publications such as the New York Times , Village Voice , Monthly Review , and Dissent , and how Cuban socialism became a rallying cry for groups such as the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the Hispanic Left. Fighting over Fidel shows how intellectuals in New York interpreted and wrote about the Cuban experience, and how the Left's enthusiastic embrace of Castro's revolution ended in bitter disappointment by the close of the explosive decade of the 1960s. New York in the 1960s was a hotbed for progressive causes of every stripe, including women's liberation, civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War - and the Cuban Revolution. 'Fighting over Fidel' brings this turbulent cultural moment to life by telling the story of the New York intellectuals who championed and opposed Castro's revolution Hipsters and apparatchiks -- Naming the hurricane -- Socialists in Manhattan -- The cultural apparatus of the empire -- Moons of the revolution -- Negroes with guns -- The league of militant poets -- The skin of socialism