October 2022 saw the 60th anniversary of what is known in the West as the Cuban Missile Crisis, or in Cuba, as the Crisis of October. In the words of Che Guevara, these were ‘sad and luminous’ days in which the entire population of the world for the first time in history contemplated the annihilation of human civilisation if not the species entirely. That Cuba, a small power in the Caribbean, should have been the fulcrum of this storm is yet another remarkable fact in a long list that makes this island exceptional and the focus of attention for institutions such as ours. For this reason, the International Institute for the Study of Cuba organised two online seminars to mark the anniversary of the Crisis and some of the results of this endeavour are included in this special edition of the journal.
What we have included are the contributions from two Cuban scholars, Rafael Hernández and Tomás Diez Acosta, who present the Cuban revolutionary point of view of the Crisis and make some important points that counter the established narratives about the event that dominate discourse in the West. In addition, there is an article by Professor Håkan Karlsson of Gothenberg University, on the archeology and anthropology of the Crisis sites. Finally, two Iranian scholars, Somayeh Shaban and Madjid Eshaghi Gordji provide an exposition of game theory and how it provides a new insight into how the Crisis was resolved.
These items are by no means the whole of the proceedings and readers are invited to watch recordings of the seminars on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@cubastudies
The rest of the edition comprises three more articles that cover a range of disciplines and four book reviews. As usual, the offerings are by researchers from across the globe, reflecting the passion and interest that the Cuban revolutionary project inspires. Firstly, Betsy Anaya Cruz and Anicia García Álvarez of the University of Havana discuss the current state of food security in Cuba, which has been made worse by the effects of the Covid pandemic. They recommend an inter-sectoral and inter-ministry approach to address the problem. Ana Garcia Chichester of the University of Mary Washington in Virginia then makes a foray into the representation of slavery in two 19th-century Spanish publications including two from Cuba and one from Barcelona. This is followed by an article from UK-based scholars Denise Baden, Naveena Prakasam and Stephen Wilkinson on the question of leadership succession in Cuba. Finally, José Ramón Sanabria Navarro, Yahilina Silveira Pérez and William Alejandro Niebles Nuñez from Colombia discuss the socioeconomic impact of migration in Cuba during 2022.
As we enter our 15th year of publication, we are particularly indebted to the support we receive from the international community of Cuban scholars, without whom the journal would not have survived. We are also entirely grateful to those of our readers who support us through generous donations. This is our only source of income. If you have not done so, please consider contributing to our work and to keeping the journal open access. You will find the donation portal here: