Jose Marti contributed greatly to Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain with words as well as revolutionary action. Although he died before the formation of an independent republic, he has since been hailed as a heroic martyr inspiring Cuban republican traditions. During the twentieth century, traditionally nationalistic literature has reinforced an uncritical idealization of Marti and his influence. However, new approaches have recently explored the formation, reception, uses and abuses of the Marti myth. The essays in this volume analyze the influence of Jose Marti - poet, scholar, and revolutionary - on the formation of often-competing national identities in post-independence Cuba. By exploring the diverse representations and interpretations of Marti, they provide a critical analysis of the ways in which both the left and right have used his political and literary legacies to argue their version of contemporary Cuban 'reality.'

Jose Marti contributed greatly to Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain with words as well as revolutionary action. Although he died before the formation of an independent republic, he has since been hailed as a heroic martyr inspiring Cuban republican traditions. During the twentieth century, traditionally nationalistic literature has reinforced an uncritical idealization of Marti and his influence. However, new approaches have recently explored the formation, reception, uses and abuses of the Marti myth. The essays in this volume analyze the influence of Jose Marti - poet, scholar, and revolutionary - on the formation of often-competing national identities in post-independence Cuba. By exploring the diverse representations and interpretations of Marti, they provide a critical analysis of the ways in which both the left and right have used his political and literary legacies to argue their version of contemporary Cuban "reality."

Focusing on a period of history rocked by four armed movements, Lillian Guerra traces the origins of Cubans' struggles to determine the meaning of their identity and the character of the state, from Cuba's last war of independence in 1895 to the consolidation of U.S. neocolonial hegemony in 1921. Guerra argues that political violence and competing interpretations of the ""social unity"" proposed by Cuba's revolutionary patriot, Jose Marti, reveal conflicting visions of the nation - visions that differ in their ideological radicalism and in how they cast Cuba's relationship with the United States. As Guerra explains, some nationalists supported incorporating foreign investment and values, while others sought social change through the application of an authoritarian model of electoral politics; still others sought a democratic government with social and economic justice. But for all factions, the image of Marti became the principal means by which Cubans attacked, policed, and discredited one another to preserve their own vision over others'. Guerra's examination demonstrates how competing historical memories and battles for control of a weak state explain why polarity, rather than consensus on the idea of the ""nation"" and the character of the Cuban state, came to define Cuban politics throughout the twentieth century.

In the tumultuous first decade of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and other leaders saturated the media with altruistic images of themselves in a campaign to win the hearts of Cuba's six million citizens. In Visions of Power in Cuba, Lillian Guerra argues that these visual representations explained rapidly occurring events and encouraged radical change and mutual self-sacrifice. Mass rallies and labor mobilizations of unprecedented scale produced tangible evidence of what Fidel Castro called "unanimous support" for a revolution whose "moral power" defied U.S. control. Yet participation in state-orchestrated spectacles quickly became a requirement for political inclusion in a new Cuba that policed most forms of dissent. Devoted revolutionaries who resisted disastrous economic policies, exposed post-1959 racism, and challenged gender norms set by Cuba's one-party state increasingly found themselves marginalized, silenced, or jailed. Using previously unexplored sources, Guerra focuses on the lived experiences of citizens, including peasants, intellectuals, former prostitutes, black activists, and filmmakers, as they struggled to author their own scripts of revolution by resisting repression, defying state-imposed boundaries, and working for anti-imperial redemption in a truly free Cuba.