From revolutionary to leader of Cuba for almost 50 years, Fidel Castro was a man who evoked admiration and criticism throughout his life. Following his death at 90 this admiration and criticism has been the subject of an intense international debate.
Was Castro the tyrant, human rights abuser and torturer his detractors claim? Or was he one of history's great emancipators, a revolutionary and leader who successfully defied the might of Washington to inspire in Cuba a society founded on the principle of human solidarity, while abroad playing a crucial role in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa in addition to spreading the values of the Cuban Revolution with the country's much vaunted medical missions throughout the Third World?
John Wight and Hugh Kerr discuss and explore these aspects of Castro's legacy, along with the role of the US trade embargo and 'special period' after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 in shaping the contours and development of this small country, one which prior to its revolution in 1959 was a neo-colony of the United States.
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