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Looking at Cuba: Essays on Culture and Civil Society. By Rafael Hernández. Translated by Dick Cluster. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003. Pp. xviii, 145. Illustrations. Notes. $24.95 cloth
As its title indicates, this book is a look at Cuba with the specific claim that it is an insider's look. One of the striking, and indeed important points that the author makes is that Cuban scholars living on the island are listened to only when they become dissidents in their own country or when they decide to live abroad. When they are critical, as Hernândez is, but do not profess opposition to the revolution, Cuban intellectuals are regarded as representing the state. Thus there is disbelief in the role of intellectuals as independent thinkers in Cuba and even in the mere existence of a civil society, understood by Hernández as "the sphere of relations among individuals, groups and social classes outside the institutional power relationships characteristic of the State" (p. 27). The essays compiled here were originally published in Spanish on the island, and Hernández is...