Product Description

This is a sympathetic, street-level pilgrimage through a revolutionary society in transition, and the story of a passionate, struggling, sometimes discouraged but always proud country, told by citizens whose confidence in their revolution is both enduring and conflicted. The narrative recounts the author's six trips to Cuba between 1991 and 1999. Updated with an epilogue that details Ripley's seventh trip to Cuba in July 2000, this edition shows, through is firsthand experiences, observations, and conversations with ordinary Cubans, how he strives to understand and reveal Cuba, its revolution, and his attachment to both.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #814589 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Library Journal
Present-day Cuba continues to be a mystery to most Americans. The historical travel restrictions, though not as prohibitive as in earlier years, continue to limit the number of Americans who visit this island, Communist since the late 1950s. Ripley, a historian of the black experience in the United States, has written a personal and sensitive description of the Cuban people. Based on five trips he made between 1991 and 1997, his latest book examines Cuba's common citizens, whose lives are intimately connected to the Cuban revolution. Sympathetic to the revolution, Ripley paints a more positive picture of Cuba's recent history than does the mainstream press. Although not entirely objective, the text is well written and informative. Of interest to academic libraries with Latin American collections and public libraries with a Latino patron base.AMark L. Grover, Brigham Young Univ. Lib., Provo, UT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In the 40 years since the Cuban Revolution, much has changed there. Ripley, through five visits in the 1990s, uncovers the attitudes of this contradictory island country. Despite most people's unwillingness to criticize the government, there are subtle expressions of dissatisfaction, mostly from the younger generation that does not remember the revolution itself. However, there are enough Cubans who, despite their sometimes squalid conditions, still utter "Vive la revolucion!" Indeed, during the course of the book, Ripley relates how dollars began to be accepted as well as pesos and even how U.S. customs doesn't go out of its way to prevent black-market cigars from entering the U.S. His romanticism of the revolution gets tested; the family he meets each visit is largely in Castro's corner, but many of the women would move to the U.S. if given a chance. Ripley's breezy writing style spotlights well these noble, fascinating people and their often complex story. Joe Collins

Review
"Ripley's book is a weapon... against wrong-headed policies, aging stereotypes, dogmatic cliches, intransigence and arrogance and the brittle but enduring myths of Cold War politics." - from the foreword by Bob Shacochis"

Customer Reviews

An unbiased perspective of Cuba
Good travel writing must encompass an author's ability to leave a good deal of his preconceptions and certainties at home and view everything from a different perspective. Conversations With Cuba, authored by C. Peter Ripley does not disappoint the reader in presenting Cuba in an impartial and unbiased light that for many of us will be quite a revelation.

As the title suggests, the book is based on a chronicle of conversations the author held with several Cubans during the course of his six trips to Cuba from 1991 until 2000. The first trip commences in 1991 and as the author states "a book about Cuba wasn't part of the plan when I began scheming to travel to Fidel Castro's embargoed island." It was moreover a need to satisfy a romantic curiosity that had occupied the author's mind since the age of fifteen. The opportunity presented itself when Ripley convinces a writer friend to tag along with him when the friend had been assigned by a magazine to write an article concerning Castro's emerging tourism trade.

From the very onset of his travels in 1991, Ripley is able to make personal contact with ordinary Cubans who are very eager to converse and express their feelings and perceptions. In fact, as the author states, "whatever the problems, whatever the politics of this place, no one, no one, refused to talk with us, about anything. Who is going to believe that back home."

Subsequent trips to Cuba reveal a kind of roller coaster ride in the sense that unlike the initial contact with Cuba, there were periods of extreme anxiety when basic necessities such as food, fuel and electricity were rationed. As for consumer goods, they were out of bounds for the average Cubans, although they were available in stores where foreigners frequented. There was also a prohibition imposed on the Cubans from being permitted to frequent hotels where foreigners vacationed.

This period was followed by a kind of loosening when a sliver of Capitalism peeks out from the clouds and Castro permits farmers to sell their produce for dollars in various markets. Unfortunately, this does not last too long, and the brakes are applied, putting an end to the so called "good times."
Ripley is very effective in revealing to the reader the spirit and soul of Cuba. As he states, "whatever Cuba was or was not, whatever she might become, she was not an island where a single opinion prevailed, however much some claim or hope." This is evidenced in the many towns and villages Ripley visits and as he asserts, Havana is not Cuba. To understand Cuba you must travel throughout the country and in particular to Santiago, the birthplace of the revolution. It is in all of these towns and hamlets where you will feel, taste, hear and smell what Cuba is all about and perhaps where it may be going in the future.

Although the book is not meant to be a scholarly text, it certainly serves as an excellent introduction in understanding Cuban history prior to and after the revolution.

Norm Goldman Editor of Bookpleasures

An author you just want to smack in the head...
It is hard to put one's finger on just what it is about this guy that is so damn annoying. Maybe it's the way he spouts off "facts" about Cuba that would appear to have been gleaned from Reader's Digest. Maybe it is the way he reminds one of that pesky "authority" sitting next to you on an international flight who deems it his responsibility to enlighten everyone else in coach. Or maybe it is just that he appears to be so damn american. Whatever it is, it is creepy. Pick it up at your library and give it a quick read some afternoon, but only after you have read works by more credible authors. There are scores out there with more credibility on this subject.

Awful book ...
This book blows. Buy the book by Christopher Hunt, "Waiting for Fidel", which is funnier and more accurate (albeit also flawed by a no-fun author). This book tries to be ponderous, serious, weighty, but with no analysis, just postering. The author is an ... (or at least claims to be) when Cuba is in fact crying out as a place to have fun. The author tries to engage in seditious conversation about politics at every turn, when most people (and I have visited Cuba) just want to get on with life. What a bore and waste of money. I almost think the author threw together this book so he can claim that he is a professor who has published. By the way, the author should educate himself when railing against the U.S. embargo as the root of Cuba's ills--according to the Cato Institute, the embargo is not that disruptive--the fault lies in communism. But again, I don't care about politics, just trying to point out how limited in scope the author's views are....braying about politics, never having fun...on and on and on and...well, I've made my point.