Daniel C. Walsh

The topic of the book seemed extremely interesting and was little known to me. Unfortunately, the book as it's written, seems to try and cover too much information without actually covering the topic that the book is supposed to be about. Walsh seems to have wanted to write a book about the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), it's internal (& external) struggle to take over the cuban-american movement, and it's relationship to the US Government. Large swaths of the book go by with only a few brief mentions of the so-called 'air war over cuba.' The writing style was good, though tended to get bogged down in minute details of topics that didn't really relate to what should've been the primary focus of the book. Informative read, but not what I thought it was going to be.… (plus d'informations)

This was a very insightful and interesting book about the history between the USA and Cuba. We learn pretty much nothing about it in school, so this gave me a basic rundown of the events that have taken place over the last 70 or so years, with thorough detail on the US reaction to it all. I was floored by how much money has been spent for such a pointless purpose, and I had no idea that the hard-liners had such sway over the presidents, even Clinton--who disagreed with most of their views. Very illuminating, and I didn't find it dry, either. Much enjoyed.… (plus d'informations)

Daniel Walsh takes on a very relevant and little-covered subject - that of United States international broadcasting - in his book "An Air War with Cuba: The United States Radio Campaign Against Castro". He has the opportunity to consult sources from Dante to congressional transcripts to tell the troubled story of U.S. broadcasts beamed to Cuba since the 1959 revolution. However, a number of problems hamper his ability to probvide even a coherent background to Radio Marti, much less America's other broadcasting attempts.

The first problem is that Walsh struggles to stick with the story of broadcasting. Rather than providing a background to United States international broadcasting prior to the Cuban Revolution and then detailing the changes, problems, and successes it experienced in the intervening years, he seems to become distracted by other, tangentially related topics. Pages can pass without a mention of radio or televison. Walsh spends much of his energy detailing the full histories of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), specific congressional races, and Castro's move to power. While these all provide vital background to the U.S.-Cuba relationship, Walsh instead moves his entire focus to the dirty details of the CANF's internal struggles.

Walsh's failure to focus on broadcasting is amplified by issues with writing and editorial styles used in the book. Subjects are quickly changed from paragraph to paragraph, with few clues given to the reader on why the information in the current paragraph is relevant to the last. Chapters do not include further subheadings to break down the topic (or usually topics) at hand, and there is little consideration given to providing a coherent point within each paragraph. Finally, to this reader, it appears that Walsh provides irrevalent details througout the book. For example, the last chapter includes the following sentence: "Annette Taddeo, a Colombian-born businesswoman who converted to Judaism, overcame a huge early deficit to take 42 percent fo the vote, giving Ileana Ros-Lehtinen her closest margin of victory since the 1989 special election that first sent her to Congress." Annette Taddeo is only mentioned in this one spot and the significance of her Jewish faith has little to do with the topic or anything previously or later discussed in the book.

These two significant problems contribute the the final, largest problem: there is no argument. In the preface, Walsh notes that "...I have tried to take the approach of a reporter. ... Readers are left to draw their own conclusions." The title of the book indicates that it is focused on United States international broadcasting to Cuba. However, so much of the text is bogged down in the history of Congress and Little Havana that is little related to broadcasting. The last two paragraphs of the final chapter even fail to mention broadcasting. Since the author provides no argument and extensive tangential details amid a challenging writing structure, it is difficult for the reader to draw conclusions.

I truly believe that Daniel Walsh is an experienced researcher with a truly important research interest. He has consulted a wide variety of excellent sources for this book. I believe that he is very right to ask "Why then does the United States continue to broadcast to Cuba?" "An Air War with Cuba: The United States Radio Campaign Against Castro" is a start to answering this question. However, it requires further research and extensive reorganization to be a useful tool for readers to answer that question.… (plus d'informations)