Fidel Castro, one of the chief protagonists of the Cold War and Washington's traditional foe, casts a critical eye over the significance of Barack Obama's election and his performance in his first term of office.

Since retiring from public life in 2006, the Cuban leader has continued to make characteristically forthright comments on world events and US political developments, such as the successful passage of President Obama's health reform bill and whether US?Cuba relations might finally be improving.

This new, updated edition includes Fidel Castro's response to the Arizona assassination attempt and President Obama's 2011 State of the Union address.

"There are many desecrations of human rights taking place in our world. Many involve conflicts of great complexity, religious or factional: it is immensely difficult to create just solutions to them. Guantánamo is the outstanding exception. The just solution is simple . . . the US must leave Guantánamo unconditionally."?From the foreword by Noam Chomsky, Nadine Gordimer, Rigoberta Menchu, and others

"Imagine if after we defeated the British in our revolution, we then let them keep a few thousand troops and a bunch of battleships in New York Harbor. Weird!"?Michael Moore

"To keep a military base against the will of our people is a violation of the most elemental principles of international law."?Fidel Castro

How is it that Guantánamo Bay, seized after the Spanish-American War over one hundred years ago, is still held by the United States as a naval base? President Obama has proposed to close the prison for those captured in the "war against terrorism," but Fidel Castro argues in this extended essay, "The Empire and the Independent Island," written in 2007, that the illegal occupation must end and the territory be returned to Cuba.

This book also features a comprehensive chronology of the base's history and extensive appendices, including some key historical documents through which Washington has justified its continued occupation and recently declassified documents from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. It also includes a foreword by Noam Chomsky, Nadine Gordimer, Salim Lamrani, Rigoberta Menchu, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

“This startling book is based on … conversations between the Cuban leader and a Brazilian priest. The talk is informal and far-ranging, and Betto's questions are often provocative (‘Does Cuba export revolution?’).”—Publishers Weekly

The product of an intimate 23-hour dialogue between Fidel Castro and Brazilian liberation theologist Frei Betto, this was a Simon & Schuster bestseller in the 1980s. Here Castro speaks candidly about his views on religion and his education in elite Catholic colleges, offering an insight into the man behind the beard.

Features a new translation and a unique selection of photos of Fidel as a boy.

Fidel Castro adds his voice to the growing international chorus against neoliberalism and the globalization of the world economy. He calls for the abolition of the IMF and asks: “Why not seek other formulas and admit that humankind is able to organize itself and its destiny in a more rational and humane manner?”

Fidel Castro also discusses

*  the danger of a new stock market collapse

*  U.S. cultural hegemony

*  NATO's war in Yugoslavia

*  US “war on drugs” in Latin America

*  the need to democratize the United Nations

*  the catastrophe of capitalist reform in Russia

*  the current state of US-Cuba relations

In the face of the “new world order,” Fidel comments: “To endure the global struggle between the super-powers is bad. To live under total hegemonic domination by one of them is worse.”

“Library shelves are full of books touting the wonders of globalization; perhaps there should also be room there for a dissenting voice. This volume collects speeches and written messages by Castro over the last two years… Castro has no objection to globalization; in fact, he considers it inevitable. What he objects to is the imposition of neoliberal capitalism in the name of globalization.” —Booklist