American sociologist who reopened the debate on the Cuban Revolution
In The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered (2006) he cast the revolutionary leaders as autonomous actors pursuing their own ideological vision rather than a master plan, challenging the dominant reading.
Born in Marianao, Cuba, to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. He joined the anti-Batista movement as a high school student, moved to the United States in 1958 and took his PhD in sociology at UC Berkeley in 1969. He taught at UCLA, SUNY-Old Westbury, Fairleigh Dickinson and Brooklyn College (CUNY), retiring in 2007, and has written on the Cuban Revolution, the Castro government, Soviet history and US politics from a left-wing, radical-democratic standpoint. No death record is confirmed.
Career timeline
- 1939Born in Marianao, Cuba
- 1950sTook part in the anti-Batista mass movement as a high school student
- 1958Moved to the United States
- 1969PhD in sociology, UC Berkeley
- 1976Published Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 1933–1960
- 1990Published Before Stalinism
- 2006Published The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered
- 2007Retired from Brooklyn College (CUNY)
Cuban-born US sociologist and historian of the Cuban Revolution
In December 1977 she helped lead the Antonio Maceo Brigade with Lourdes Casal on a visit to Cuba by 55 exiles, a trip that preceded the 1978 dialogues between Cuban exiles and the Cuban government.
Marifeli Pérez-Stable is a Cuban-born sociologist and historian of Cuba, born in 1949; her family left the island when she was 11. She took her PhD in sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1985 and a master's in political science at the University of Florida. She is the author of The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy (Oxford University Press, first edition 1993), whose periodization the dictionary's historiography draws on. She was professor of sociology at Florida International University, now professor emeritus, and served as vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue from 2004 to 2009. Her designation as Cuban is an attributed label; no formal US citizenship status is documented.
Career timeline
- 1976–1988Instructor and assistant professor, Politics, Economy and Society Program, SUNY College at Old Westbury
- 1985PhD in sociology, State University of New York at Stony Brook
- 2004–2009Vice president for democratic governance, Inter-American Dialogue
- 2004–2011Biweekly Miami Herald column on Latin America
1939–