Cuba: How A Small Communist Country Changed the World

FEATURING MARGARET RANDALL – After President Barack Obama ended the US’s long-held policy of giving Cuban immigrants special status, migration from Cuba has slowed down to the trickle. Obama’s warming of US relations with Cuba was hailed by many as a positive step toward ending the embargo and hostility from the world’s superpower against a tiny communist nation.

The changes come at the same time as Google is setting up its first Internet servers in Cuba, half a year after the death of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. Cuba has had an outsized influence on the world stage compared to its size and population. The sheer moral force of Cuba’s revolution has inspired and angered heads of state and individuals for decades now.

Margaret Randall, author of dozens of book of poetry and prose, including Haydee Santamaria, Cuban Revolutionary: She Led By Transgression, and Che on My Mind. She is also the editor of Only the Road/Solo El Camino: Eight Decades of Cuban Poetry. Her new book is called Exporting Revolution: Cuba’s Global Solidarity.