Argues that China has gained influence in multilateral institutions, prompting them toward greater acceptance of public spending in developing countries and that recent developments in Cuba show that China is actively encouraging the Western hemisphere's only communist country to liberalize its economy. China sits at the crossroads of these local and global developments, prompting Cuba toward rapprochement with international norms even as it works to reform them.
Reviews several books on Cuban history before 1959. American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean 1898-1934, by César Ayala; Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898, by Ada Ferrer; Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba, by Rosalie Schwartz.;