Cuban Revolution 1953-1989 and Revolutionary Biographies: Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and Hugo Chávez
This page has information to help with doing research on the Cuban revolution. Focus is upon the time period between the 1953 uprising to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. In addition there is information to help with research on 'Che' Guevara (1928-1967) and Hugo Chávez (1954-2013) and political movements associated with them.
| Reference Resources | Terms to Search in Library Catalog | Research Databases |
| Circulating Items | Print Indexes | Journals Owned by CSU |
| Biographical Information for Guevara and Chávez | Web Resources |
Reference Resources--Encyclopedias & More
Encyclopedias can be a great place to start your research, get an overview of your topic, or help you narrow your area of focus. Morgan Library has a number of encyclopedia sets that may be useful to you as you begin your research. Encyclopedias are located in the Reference collection, so they may not be checked out. General encyclopedias can also be extremely useful.
Circulating Items: Morgan Stacks, Maps (also online)
Electronic Book--available to CSU affiliates online (requires eID to access)
Terms to Search in Library Catalog & Regional Catalog Prospector
Subject headings are the most efficient search for identifying books in the library catalog. Identify useful books in the library catalog (and the Regional Catalog Prospector--many more items can be found there; also check WorldCat using these terms) doing a (LC) Subject search for:
|
Batista Y Zaldivar Fulgencio 1901 1973 [3] |
Cuba Politics and Government 1933 1959 |
Also look at subdivisions. For instance: Castro Fidel 1926 Interviews. It may be helpful to limit your search to pertinent years, e.g. after 1952 and before 1990, or simply after 1952 (there are probably useful sources from more recent years). Cuba has had more than one revolution.
Do Author searches to find first-hand, research, poetry, or fictional accounts by specific Cubans (note: some of these authors are also listed as subjects above), last name first:
| Ada Alma Flor Arenas Reinaldo 1943 1990 Barnet Miguel 1940 Batista Y Zaldivar Fulgencio 1901 1973 [1] Castro Fidel 1926 |
Espin Guillois Vilma 1930 2007 Guevara Ernesto 1928 1967 Guillen Nicolas 1902 1989 Padilla Heberto Triana Jose 1931 |
Most of these authors have a profile in Contemporary Authors (all but Espin).
All of the subject and author terms above work in WorldCat.
Terms and subjects will vary from source to source. In addition, terminology changes over time, so it will be necessary to be creative (i.e. know your history) in order to succeed in identifying articles of interest.
Take note that the exact terms and types of terms will vary from index (database) to index. Case (capitalization) does not matter when doing searches. Use Truncation and proximity operators to do advanced searching. When the full text of an article is not available, use the 
button to find out if the article is available full text in another electronic location. Also check for printed versions. If not available at CSU, request the article from Interlibrary Loan.
Free Online Access Databases
Additional titles (many in Spanish), search the library catalog by subject: Latin America Periodicals; Latin America History Periodicals; Central America History Periodicals (one title)
Find information about Guevara and Chávez's lives using biographical resources. Be certain to look in:
See Biographical Research site for these and other useful resources for locating biographical information.
-->Click here for information about evaluating Web sites.
Bibliographies on Latin America
See Bibliographies section on Modern Latin American History Web page.
General--Web Pages on Latin America
See General Web pages section on Modern Latin American History Web page.
Cuba. CIA World Factbook. (.cu)
Information about Cuba's geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.
Cuba. on LANIC: Latin American Network Information Center. Copyright © 1992-2012. University of Texas at Austin.
Links to Web sites on or about Cuba arranged by: Academic Research Resources; Arts & Culture; Blogs; Economy & Trade; General; Government; History; Human Rights, Citizenship, & Social Justice; Magazines & Periodicals; Music; News; Portals, Directories & Search Sites; Radio & Television; Sports; and Travel & Tourism. Extensive, but not annotated.
Cuba Historia. Administración del Sitio del Gobierno de la Republica de Cuba. In Spanish.
Covers Cuba's history.
Cuba. U. S. Department of State. Office of the Historian.
Selected search results after doing a search for "Cuba" in the database. As of October 2012 there are 3965 results.
The Cuban Photograph Collections. University of Miami Libraries.
"The Cuban Photograph Collections include over 5,000 photographs which span a wide range of historical topics related to Cuba and the Cuban Diaspora." There are specific collections within the larger collection.
Timeline: Cuba. Algis Ratnikas. 1492 to the present.
The Empire and the Independent Island. Fidel Castro. Countercurrents.org. August 14, 2007. Overview of 140 years of Cuba's history. A lot of detail.
Historia de Cuba. EcuRed. In Spanish.
Lengthy. Might be from a Spanish-equivalent of Wikipedia site (?).
Just Before the Revolution
"The Architect of the Cuban State: Fulgencio Batista and Populism in Cuba, 1937-1940." Robert Whitney. Journal of Latin American Studies 32 (2000): 435-59. JLASonline.
Journal article that describes Batista's populist era and Cuba's transition to another type of government.
A Guide to the Fulgencio Batista Inauguration Collection. John R. Nemmers. University of Florida Smathers Libraries. September 2004. Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar (1901-1973) was President of Cuba, 1940-1944 and 1952-1959.
This finding aid identifies items found in the special collections of the University of Florida Library. Items include: "Programs, invitations, tickets, parking stub, newspaper clipping." Scroll down to click on the link for: "University of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC)" and see these objects in digital format (check copyright statements before using any of them).
Cuban Revolution & Beyond
Bay of Pigs
Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation Volume 1 Part 1. Freedom of Information Act. Central Intelligence Agency.
Find other volumes by searching the FOIA site (visible on this page as of Nov. 2014) for "Bay of Pigs" Declassified documents about the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Filtered to those available online.
The Bay of Pigs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Summary of events leading up to, during, and after the incident referred to as the Bay of Pigs.
Bay of Pigs: 40 Years After. Chronology. The National Security Archive January 1, 1959-December 23/24, 1962.
Foot of page has source key (bibliography).
The CIA's Internal Probe of the Bay of Pigs Affair: Lessons Unlearned. Michael Warner. Central Intelligence Agency. 2007, 2008.
A look back at the events with 32 notes. Focus upon the postmortems of the operation.
Other
Castro Speech Database: Speeches, Interviews, Articles. Latin American Network Information Center (lanic). University of Texas at Austin.
"This database includes speeches, interviews, etc., by Fidel Castro from 1959 to 1996. All texts are in English." See caveats before citing items from this site.
Che Guevara Internet Archive. Brian Baggins. Marxists Internet Archive.
Library, biography, images, and speeches.
Cuba’s Food & Agriculture Situation Report. Office of Global Analysis, FAS, USDA. 2008.
68 page report on agricultural situation as of 2008. Includes charts, information on exports, and more.
Cuban Missile Crisis. Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy. Vincent Ferraro. Mont Holyoke College.
Links out to various primary (and possibly a few secondary) sources. Not all links work.
The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified. Peter Kornbluh. National Security Archive. The George Washington University. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 5.
"[A] selection of key CIA, State Department, and Pentagon documentation relating to Guevara and his death." Declassified documents. PDFs are annotated.
The Federation of Cuban Women. Stanford University.
"The FMC was established in 1960 by Fidel Castro, with Vilma Espin, a close friend of his, as president." Page has an overview of the organization and what its goals were and are. (In Spanish: La Federación de la Mujer Cubana.)
Feminism in Cuba. Bibliography. Kristin Switalia. (c) Feminist Theory Website. Virginia Tech University.
List of titles. Check library catalog for local holdings.
Fidel Castro History Archive. Brian Baggins. Marxists Internet Archive.
Texts of speeches (in English). Listed in chronological order.
On the Brink: From the Bay of Pigs to the Cuban Missile Crisis. United States History 1959-1962. Lessons in U.S. History. Matthew Mooney. The University of California, Irvine. PDF.
Lesson plans that cover the topic. Summary of events with photographs, maps, bibliographies, and more.
Trotskyism and the Cuban Revolution: 1953-2006. Encyclopedia of Trotskyism on Line. History Section. Trotsky Internet Archive. Marxists’ Internet Archive. Center for Digital Discourse and Culture. @ Virginia Tech.
Overview. Links to articles related to the topic. Articles, listed chronologically beginning in 1960, come from scholarly journals, bulletins, books (chapters), and other academic sources.
Baseball
Commie Ball: A Journey to the End of a Revolution. Michael Lewis. Politics July 2008. Vanity Fair.
Lengthy magazine article about the topic. Includes photo of Fidel Castro with baseball players.
Misc.
Cuba's Tourism Industry. Charles Suddaby. PDF.
Proceedings from a conference with tourism numbers from the mid 1990s. See all of the papers from the conference on Cuba in Transition: Volume 7. Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE) Miami, Florida. August 7-9, 1997.
ASCE Annual Proceedings. Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy.
See proceedings of the ASCE starting in 1991 to the present. Early years on basic Web pages; later in PDF.
Cuba & the U.S.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Cuba, Volume VI. Office of the Historian. Department of State.
629 documents.
Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-1963 Volume X: Cuba, January 1961-September 1962. Department of State.
"The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity of the United States Government. The series documents the facts and events that contributed to the formulation of policies and includes evidence of supporting and alternative views to the policy positions ultimately adopted." 443 documents and memoranda.
U.S. Relations with Cuba. Fact Sheet. U.S. Department of State.
Brief information about current situation. There are links off of the page that may also be of interest to current events.
Venezuela
The Hugo Chávez Show. Frontline. PBS.
"In The Hugo Chávez Show, FRONTLINE producer Ofra Bikel travels to Venezuela to offer an illuminating portrait of the Venezuelan president. Through interviews with former government officials, Chávez associates and ordinary Venezuelans, FRONTLINE chronicles Chávez's ascent to power and his efforts to use the powers of the presidency to stay there. "The film also reveals the key role of the media—or, rather, Chávez's savvy use of the media—in his rise to power."
Venezuelanalysis.com News, Views, and Analysis.
"[A]n independent website produced by individuals who are dedicated to disseminating news and analysis about the current political situation in Venezuela."
Additional
See also Soviet Union 1917-1991.
It is essential that you carefully evaluate whatever you might find, no matter the format. See: How to Evaluate Journal Articles, How to Evaluate Books, How to Evaluate a Web Page, and How to Evaluate a Movie, Video, or Film Clip.
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