Persona non grata

This is a fascinating book. First, it's a long, honest (brutally honest) look at the Cuban state by a "bourgeois liberal intellectual" (I'm using "liberal" in the English sense - with connotations of free speech, free trade, and social justice - perhaps "reform liberalism" is a better term in the USA?); a point of view pretty close to my own (and, I would guess, many westerners these days who consider themselves synpathetic to "the left"). So the author is sympathetic to the revolutionary ideals, but can also see, quite clearly, what Castro cannot. Second, it explores the tension that arises when an attempt to achieve those ideals is opposed - the spiral of control and resistance, secret police and "traitors". It's pretty common to forgive Cuba because "they've had to withstand so much" (particularly the American embargo); this book makes a good case that by the early 1970s Castro had already overdrawn this moral account. Third, it indirectly sheds light on Chile's own democratic revolution, under Allende. To what extent Allende failed through being too open, and whether any other approach would have been worthwhile, is a constant subtext. Finally, it was interesting to see how diplomacy "works" at a basic day-to-day level. [I should add I read the Chilean/Spanish 2006 edition - it has a few extra details (mainly footnotes) added, apparently, but nothing very significant.]