Introduction

Cuba and the world is a dynamic conjunction. As the key to the Antilles, Cuba was the nodal point between colonial Spain’s far-flung empire and home base in Seville. Havana’s harbor was the main docking point for the Spanish galleons that plied the world’s oceans. Cuba and the world remained closely connected until 1959. Not two years old, Revolutionary Cuba, however, saw the United States impose a partial commercial, economic, and financial embargo, which was strengthened to a near-total embargo in 1962. Subsequent codifications of the Cuban Democracy Act (1992), Helms-Burton Act (1996), and others shaped much of Cuba’s foreign relations from the outside. Then, the collapse of the Soviet bloc left Cuba relatively isolated in the 1990s, without the massive subsidies and primary trading partner it had grown to rely on. Cuba would seek to redefine its relationships with the world once more and entered bilateral cooperation with several South American nations, most notably, if not notoriously, Venezuela, but also Bolivia. If one travels to Cuba today, one can almost see practically the entire world there. If one pays careful attention, one will even see even US citizens exploring the recesses of Old Havana. Such is the allure of Cuba’s forbidden fruit to the rest of the world.