Cuba-US Relations: Obama and Beyond.

• Author: Leonard, Thomas M.
• Position: LATIN AMERICA - Book review

August, Arnold. Cuba-US Relations: Obama and Beyond. Halifax, Canada: Fernwood Publishing, 2017.

After a generation of working as a researcher and a political and trade union activist in Canada, author Arnold August turned to journalism. He focused attention on Cuba and the ongoing issue of disinformation in western media, particularly in the United States. August, who has lectured and published on this subject, won the Felix Elmuza Award in 2013 from the Association of Cuban Journalists. Not surprisingly, Cuba-US Relations: Obama and Beyond is scheduled for publication in Spanish in Cuba in 2018. Ricardo Alarcon, a leading figure in the Cuban Revolution who subsequently played a significant role in Cuban foreign policy, serving as that nation's representative to the United Nations and its minister of foreign affairs, wrote the book's introduction. He applauds August for living among the Cuban people, an experience that enabled him to understand the Cuban view of events. He contends that August does not mimic the mainstream US-centric position espoused by so-called Cubanologists.

August devotes the first part of his book to a...