Comprehension of Canada-Cuban Relations, Book Review Example

Everything in life including international relations is interdependent and conditioned by the past, without knowing past and history people cannot understand their present and are doomed to ruin their future and make mistakes of previous generations. In order to see the phenomenon from the general and wide perspective one should pay attention to details and to the reason-sequential connection of events. Thus, in order to understand the current situation of a certain phenomenon, scholars and students should understand presuppositions of it. To cut the long story short, in order to understand the current state of bilateral relations between Cuba and Canada, one should explore the history of their formation and when they were on pick of cooperation. Particularly interesting and cognitive for the student audience would be to explore the period of 1960-70 when “special relations” between countries were established. Subsequently, the theme of the offered review essay is Canada-Cuban relationship in the period of 1960-70s. On the other hand, the overall theme of chosen books is Canada-Cuban relations in general. Three books cover various aspects of the chosen field. “Three nights in Havana” by Robert Wright tells the story of a truly unusual friendship between people who represented opposite regimes and blocks in a bipolar world of the Cold War – Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Thus, bilateral political relations are shown through the perspective of interpersonal relations. The second book by Lana Wylie “Perceptions of Cuba: Canadian and American Policies in Comparative Perspective” is devoted to analysis of American and Canadian foreign policies towards Cuba. The third book “Just watch me” by John English is an official biography of Pierre Trudeau. The aim of the offered essay is to analyze those books in accordance to the contribution to the exploration of target theme and their comprehensiveness to the audience. In other words, the work’s main idea is to find out how each book and subsequent style of narration would contribute to studying and teaching of the chosen topic (Canada-Cuban relations in 1960-70s). This aim is going to be reached through the analysis of books from the perspective of contents, strengths and weaknesses, contribution to the knowledge field, their interconnection and implications for the perspective audience.

The reasons why those books were chosen for the analysis is their different perspective of phenomenon description.  In the first book, Robert Wright gives the reflection of 70s’ political events like Cuban interaction in Angola and people dying in their attempts to escape revolutionary Cuba. It was also the time of double meaning and double standards in American politics concerning communist camp – Cuban embargo and condemnation of Canadian policy concerning Cuba and simultaneous negotiations with the Communist Republic of China. All those political events become the background for the story of the most remarkable friendship on the highest political level against all odds of geopolitical and strategic conditionality. He shows the atmosphere of the epoch through the interpersonal relations between Castro and Trudeau. The angle of topic description close to Wright’s is used by John English, but, unlike Wright, he concentrates on the description of events from the individual perspective of Trudeau’s life and political activity. The time frame of those two books is relatively the same since it is measured by the political activity of Pierre Trudeau and his life time. On the other hand, the main emphasis is different. English concentrated on true complexity of Trudeau’s personality both in public and private perspectives. Just as prime minister himself, the book goes into various aspects of Canadian life in the time frame described. It shows electoral struggles between parties, political crises over Quebec separation, its settlement and further consequences for Trudeau’s politics and Canada in general (73-75). English also outlines foreign policy of Canada during Trudeau’s government, but does not make it central like Wright and Wylie. In this context, just as R. Wright, he examines political decisions and policy making through the perspective of interpersonal relations between Trudeau and such world leaders as Thatcher, Reagan, Castro and many others. English did not put emphasis on the special friendship between Castro and Trudeau, but rather stressed relations with American presidents (465-467). Just as Wright, English pays attention to the personal features of public feature. He remarks that due to Trudeau’s personal charisma and steel character, he had an opportunity to conduct and achieve things that no other politician could have done.

If the first two books preferred to take public figures’ perspective of the topic description, the third book by Lana Wylie has a completely different angle of events description. From the title of the book by Lana Wylie, the chosen perspective of her research becomes clear. Unlike Wright and English, she does not concentrate on the interpersonal relations between leaders of Canada, Cuba and USA or biography of any of them; she neither explores bilateral relationship between Cuba and Canada. Instead, she conducts comparative analysis of Canadian and American policies towards Cuba in the framework of national identities, traditional for each country. Wylie argues that both policies are subsequent results of the historical identities development in each country and that it could not be changed overnight (7). She investigates the triangle of American exceptionalism, Canadian vision of good international citizenship and Cuban socio-communism in the framework of identity’s influence on the foreign policy formation and subsequent place of the state in international relations. In Wylie’s book, this triangle is not equilateral, since the emphasis is put on comparative analysis of American and Canadian policies towards Cuba; thus, policies directing Cuba are the main subject of her research and Cuba is not analyzed separately (Wylie, 4).  The time frame of Wylie’s book is not conditioned by the period of political figures’ lives like in books of Wright and English. She does not concentrate much on the events themselves, but rather on the theoretical explanation of the current policies with the slight reference to the historical retrospective. Concerning the relevance of the wide scope of Wylie analysis to the target topic it is useful as a background for the period exploration rather than the exact studying of it, as it is possible in the first two books.

Since all three books have different approaches to the exploration of Canada-Cuban relations and describe certain aspects of those relations, some aspects of books are more relevant for the target field and others are less necessary. The main strengths and weaknesses of books will be analyzed in terms of narration style the book, composition of the research and specifics of argumentations, comprehensiveness of the book in general. First of all let’s look into the narration perspectives. In all three books, the chosen narration perspectives are the strengths, and they only benefit to the books’ main ideas. The strength of Wright’s book is in its comprehensible narration perspective which does not diminish educative and cognitive function. The story is read like a novel, historical novel of new time. The atmosphere of the Cold War is felt through the American critics of the visit the way Trudeau was met at home with news of Angola conflict and its consequences for the Cuban-Canadian relations, but it is shown as a background of the relationship between two leaders (112). Even Quebec terrorists escaping to Cuba and releasing hostages, the letter of gratitude from Trudeau to Castro were seen through the perspective of the future friendship (23). Thus, historical events were getting personification and reality in the reader’s perception, contributing to a better comprehension of the period. The lightness of narration is also reached through the presence of Margaret Trudeau, her feminine perception of Castro and his softened attitude to the Trudeau’s as a family rather than mere political figure (53).

Characteristic feature of English’s book is that no matter which aspect of Trudeau’s life was described, he was always showing Trudeau’s personality and inborn charisma in each action, in every decision made and policy developed, both domestic and international, not to speak of his private life and how public it was. Personal approach to the narration is one of the main strengths of the book. In the context of personal, it is meant not only English’s vision, but rather its combination with Trudeau’s perception of events and attitude to people. Thus, the whole story becomes indeed intimate and comprehensible for readers. Through the combination of various aspects in Trudeau’s life and explanation of his attitudes to life in general, impression of the first person’s narration is achieved. Readers might get the same impression as talking to Trudeau in person. Thus, the story gets vividness and reality.

If Wright’s and English’s narrations are comprehensible and personified, Wylie’s narration and analysis structure is very clear in a sense of scientific rational of investigation. Thus, the strength of the book is its integrity and clear structure of analysis and narration. First of all, she analyses the perception of “Cuban others” in the context of the American exceptionalism conditioned by the Cold War stereotype of “red threat” (25). Wylie comes to the conclusion that, in order to feel themselves exceptional, United States will always need someone to be different from them, someone to project their exceptionality at. If other Cold War rivals had become new partners or at least neutral states, Cuba remains the same foe because its current political regime did not change much from the Cold War times or at least that is American perception of it. Another feature of the American perception of Cuba is in its stereotypic approach, meaning Cuba is seen through the framework of its political regime. On the other hand, China also has communist regime, but its economy is capitalistic and is strongly entwined with American (66). Thus, common interests become superior to the ideological stereotypes, but they do not disappear at all. In the American perception of international relations, Russia and China remain possible threats and rivals, but since they have some common interests and might satisfy economic needs of the United States, partnership is in progress. Cuba, on the other hand, remains the same; thus, USA has no immediate advantages to withdraw its sanctions. The Cuban isolationism also contributes to the establishment of American exceptionalism in foreign relations and serves an example of American seriousness in intentions. This particularly refers to Iran and North Korea (89).

Just as narration of all three books is their advantage, composition of the research and specifics of argumentations become one of the criteria to judge strengths or weaknesses of those works. The correlation of public and private perspectives in the exploration of the target topic in the books by Wright and English might be considered as strengths. In both books, it is vividly shown that political figures are also people and their decisions and actions are conditioned by previous experiences of the youth and personal sympathies. Wright argues that Pierre Trudeau’s youth, travelling around the world, visiting countries of communist camp including Cuba, had contributed to his tolerant attitude to peoples of those countries. He knew they were the same as citizens of Canada or USA. He did not believe in stereotypes of “red” being aliens from another planet. In order to feel himself as one of them, in his first visit to Cuba, he used to work together with Cuban people and cut sugar cane (68). Another example of Trudeau’s experience and his free will was his attempt to get to Cuba in the canoe, which resulted in him and his other friends being rescued by emergency (72). Both experiences showed Trudeau’s impartial, just and rebellious nature. They also contributed to friendship between two leaders. It made Castro evaluate Trudeau out of the bipolar political system or as representative of the capitalist society.

In the context of exploration methodology and argumentation emphasis, Wright’s book has also an arguable weakness – separation of political decision from private sympathies and preferences. Some might consider such separation negative phenomenon. This refers to the separation of Castro as a person from the political regime he created and has embodied from revolution till nowadays. Although one might argue that such separation is justification of the undemocratic regime, the aim of this separation is different. It shows that political and public figures both historical and contemporary should be viewed in complexity of their personality and political duty or role. Paradoxically, but this unity is shown through a slight separation between Castro and his regime. This shows that Castro can be seen outside American perception of him.

The research criterion in the analysis of book by English can be considered both its strength and weakness. Book’s other strength is in the profound research work he conducted and reliability of sources used. Since English is an officially recognized biographer of Trudeau and is approved by the Trudeau family, he had access to all possible documents written by prime minister that were in possession of his family. Particularly appealing was the collection of love letters Trudeau was constantly receiving from his young lovers, who were usually twice younger his age (198). Although, his love affairs were never secret to the public, those letters contributed to completing whole image of Trudeau as a man and lover. Concerning sources about his political activity, English relied on official/private letters, personal stories and interviews, primary documents from archives and memoirs of Trudeau’s contemporaries. Thus, English manages to create a complete picture of what person and political figure Trudeau was and reflect the atmosphere of epoch in which he lived.

Irrespective of the profoundness of work conducted and information collected, there are still some minuses of the book. Although it gives a complete picture of Trudeau as politician, lover, husband and ordinary human being, it lacks details which might have been expected in biography. For instance if being compared to biographies of Tony Blair or Bill Clinton, it can be characterized as a political analysis rather than chronological examination of one’s lie. Due to the number of sources available, this can be a minus of the book. On the other hand, English conducted a substantial political analysis of inner transformation in Canada, discussion of Canada Charter and Constitutional issues, development of foreign policy, including bilateral relations with Cuba. Another arguable issue of the book is an amount of attention paid to the prime minister’s private life. Although it is essential to include all aspects of his life in order to create a complete image, the narration concerning his private life was very similar to the description of the high life in the popular magazines. Frankly speaking, I did not expect to see such description in the official biography. Not that, it diminishes the value of the book, or that the information is irrelevant, I just consider it would be more suitable to appear in a separate volume – like “Trudeau’s Private Life”. Thus, more attention could have been paid to a detailed description of political events.

If Wrights and English’s exploration and argumentation techniques were advantageous due to their humanitarian combination of private and public aspects of the topic and availability of certain sources, the main strength of Wylie’s argumentation is that she supports and analyses arguments in the framework of the actual historical facts and events: adoption of Helm-Burton act (26), incident of 1996 and brothers response to it (78), US enlisting Cuba as one of the terrorism-sponsoring countries (86) etc. Thus, her argumentations are not a mere theorizing on the topic of the foreign policy origins and its possible conditionality by national identities. Wylie supports her characterization of both national identities and subsequent foreign policies through the analysis of official documents, media of various times, speeches, interviews and quotations. Thus, her research gains validity, practicality and persuasiveness.  Subsequently, this results in its high educative and scholar value.

The last criterion of books’ relevance for the target field is in their comprehensiveness to the audience. In this context, books by Wright and English, being similar in their narration, exploration approaches and emphasis on the political duality, are more comprehensible for the audience, which is hard to say about work of Wylie. Her style of writing, explanation of the events and the very approach to the topic is more theoretical and arguable than the concepts represented in the first two books. She is not just writing the history, but analyses phenomena of the international relations and tries to find the new direction in that investigation. Thus, irrespective of book’s thorough argumentation and profound research conduct or maybe due to both, the work turns to be quite complex for comprehension. In other words, for its understanding, reader should have at least higher than average knowledge in the target field.  The most successful and profound understanding of the book is possible if the audience is aware of such notions of as “American exceptionalism”, “good international citizen”, Helm-Burton act, national identity concepts, constructivist approach to the international relations etc. Although notions of all those terms can be found in the book, but the entire comprehension of the work is achieved if an individual is acquainted with the research field and has scholar interest in the topic.

In the book by Wright, the unity of private and public aspects of politicians’ life contributes to a better readers’ understanding of politics, people that exist behind the masks of political decisions and actual policies, and human nature. In other words, through such angle history gains reality and easiness of comprehension by readers who might be too young to have an interest in history, but who might find it interesting to read about interpersonal relations in the context of historical events and epoch description. Just as Wright, English is comprehensible for the readers because he explains politics through the perspective of individuality Unlike most of the traditional biographical books, this one is built through the mixture of thematic passages together with chronological order of events representation. The narration is not dry, but colorful when it concerns private life and more restrained when it refers to the politics. The book is characterized by wholeness of the scope of topics, events and personal perception description.

The analysis of main strengths and weaknesses of three books for the target topic showed that all three books are profound explorations in the wide topic of Canada-Cuban relations. The specific angles of investigation and narration perspectives of all three books contribute to profound description of Canada-Cuban relations in 1960-70s and combination of them in the curriculum would improve studying of the topic. The weaknesses found in the books of Wright and English are irrelevant from the perspective of the profound study in the field, since those weaknesses are quite subjective and depend on the scholar’s attitude to the topic. On the other hand, the most essential criterion for books’ analysis – their comprehensiveness was not corresponded by the book of Wylie. Due to its complicated theoretical perspective and exploration framework Wylie’s book losses relevance for the efficient teaching and studying of the target topic to the unprepared and unskilled audience in the target field. On the other hand, her book would contribute to the further exploration of the field.

Keeping in mind the main strengths and weaknesses of the book it is essential to understand how they contribute to the knowledge field of Canada-Cuban relations. Due to their exploration methodology, narration perspectives and aims of exploration in general, each book covers a particular aspect of bilateral relations. Wright’s book contributes to the filed because it gives another dimension of Canada-Cuban “special relations” – interpersonal sympathy between states’ leaders and how they influenced further political decision-making. The author does not conclude that political decisions were conditioned by this friendship, but rather that this friendship contributed to them. Also, the book contributes to the knowledge field by its non-American attitude to the phenomenon and evaluative perspective. In other words, analysis gains objectivity through the separation of historical insult of American property nationalization in Cuba and financial losses caused by revolution from the actual profiling of the country, relations and political consequences. Unlike other two books, which concentrate either on Canada-American relationship from the constructivist and cultural perspective or exquisitely the analysis of Trudeau’s biography, “Three nights in Havana” analyses bilateral relations through the evaluation of both countries and their leaders of 70s.  Among three books, this one has the narrowest topic and detailed description.

The main contribution of Trudeau’s biography into knowledge field of Canadian studies is that it explores political figure that embodied the whole epoch in the Canadian history, known as epoch of   “Canadian Castro”. It helps to understand the complexity of Canadian domestic and foreign policy in the 1960-70s and its conditionality by Trudeau’s personal charisma and strong character. Concerning the field of Cuban-Canadian relations, this book does not concentrate much on the interpersonal relations between two leaders, but rather on the actual political interactions and meaning of their sympathy, but not more than that (316-317). On the other hand, biography of Trudeau gives an understanding of his strong character, personal charisma and imperturbability of his convictions, which in their essence were similar to the personal feature of the enigmatic Castro. Obviously, both leaders were equals in their inner strength and desire to succeed in their life goals, although goals were different. In other words, this book just as “Three nights in Havana” substantially contributes to the knowledge field of personified history of international relations and Canadian-Cuban studies.

The scientific contribution of Wylie’s book is immense for fields of bilateral relations between three countries and international relations in general. In her research, Wylie had applied modern constructivist approach to the analysis of Canada-America relations, meaning she explored conditionality of states’ foreign policies by national identities based on cultural, ethnic and historical specifics of each country (5). She explores another evidence of foreign and domestic policies’ conditionality by national identity and nation’s self-perception, which in turn contributes to analysis of international relations from the perspective of a constructivist approach, meaning states’ internal self-identification. In comparison to other two books chosen for this review, Wylie’s book is the most academic-oriented, meaning it includes a lot of the theories of international relations as a main supposition of the research, and the target audience is specialists in fields of international relations, history or politics. From a multi-disciplinary perspective, this work might also contribute to sociological and cultural studies of identity and its political implications. Unfortunately, for the target field of Canada-Cuban relations of a specific period this work contributes partially. It does not deal with the target topic directly, but gives the overall geopolitical picture of American-Canadian bilateral relations and place of Cuba between them. This book is good as supplementary for the obligatory list of studying items.

Since the complexity, comprehensiveness and contribution of three books to the study field are different, advices to the prospective readers would be also different. Books by Wright and English are suitable for the wide audience. I would recommend them both to the history study students and regular readers interested in a strong and educative reading. Because of its analytic narration, balanced correlation between political events examination and tracking of the prime minister’s private life and scandalous affairs, any category of readers will find something intriguing and cognitive in the book of English. The book by Wright will contribute to improvement of readers’ knowledge in the field of Canada-Cuban relations in 1970s, Castro-Trudeau friendship, biography of Trudeau and political figures analysis in general. This book will help history study students to develop critical thinking beyond stereotypes of a specific historical school or research tradition. Also, it assists in deepening comprehension of the political events and their multidimensional analysis. It shows that political figures should be also studied in the perspective of their personalities and interpersonal relations. Unlike the first two books, Wylie’s work has a very specific target audience. This is not the book one might read from mere boredom or to increase one’s knowledge about the topic. The best reader would be the one acquainted with the topic, who has a profound knowledge of history and international relations. From the perspective of teaching and studying Canada-Cuban bilateral relations on the early stages, I would not suggest to start with this book. On the other hand for the specialist in international relations this one would be the best starter from all three. Subsequently, depending on the academic course and direction of exploration with book may be included in main or supplementary list of needed studying items.

Overall, from above all mentioned it becomes clear that each book has specific contribution to the Canada-Cuban relations in 1960-70s. Due to the narration style, composition of the research, specifics of argumentations, comprehensiveness and contribution to the target field, the first two books are the most suitable for the effective teaching and studying of the target field. The book by Wylie may be used as a supplementary source for the advanced students, but not as a starter for the beginners. Such conclusion is conditioned by a few facts. The narration of Wright and English is more comprehensible, clear and personified, while Wylie’s narration perspective is strict, rational and cold. The description in the first two books is through the perspectives of political figures and not states’ foreign policies like in Wylie’s work. Concentration of Wylie’s work on theoretical aspect of exploration and its wide scope made the book less comprehensible than the other two devoted to a practical side of the topic, meaning emphasis political figures. Irrespective of the complexity of Wylie’s book, its main blunder for the target field is the wide scope of her work. Since attention is paid to the international relations and place of national identities in the policy-making process, very little space was devoted to the field chosen for this exploration. Subsequently, other two books, limited to the political figures, were more specific in their research. Thus, they are more educative for the target topic. For teaching and learning of the target field, I would recommend including books by Wright and English as obligatory sources and Wylie’s book as additional. Thus, on the basis of knowledge gained in the first two books readers would be able to comprehend the last one better.

References

English, J. Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Toronto, ON: Knopf Canada. 2009. Print.

Wright, R. Three nights in Havana. Toronto, ON: Harper Perennial Canada. 2008. Print.

Wylie, L. Perceptions of Cuba: Canadian and American Policies in Comparative Perspective. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. 2010. Print.