1959: The Year That Inflamed the Caribbean

This edition is the revised by the author and reedited edition of a self-published book with the same title but different subtitle.(The year that changed our word) Certain years are pivotal in global history, and one such year was 1959, from which this book takes its title. 1959 was indeed an historic year during which, among other historic events, Fidel Castro's guerrilla war in Cuba toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista. This intriguing book, drawn from the pages of the author's English-language weekly newspaper, the Haiti Sun, and from his notebooks, provides a journalist's firsthand look at Papa Doc's reaction--at first easing, then tightening even more brutally his tyrannical rule. Diederich then traces the ensuing impacts on Haiti's relations with the U.S., other Caribbean nations, the rest of the Western Hemisphere, and the international community. 1959 is an historically compelling book which traces a pivotal year that began with Fidel Castro's victory in Cuba, triggering reverberations that changed the Caribbean. Bernard Diederich was also an eyewitness to the end of the guerrilla war and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. He secured the first interviews with Comandante Camilo Cienfuegoes and with Raul Castro after Cuban revolutionaries entered Havana, and he attended Fidel Castro's first press conference.