Gutanámo: A Working-Class History between Empire and Revolution. JANA K. LIPMAN: University of California Press, 2009.

Abstract

Jana K. Lipman has produced a grounded, powerful critique of United States policy that features the Cuban and foreign workers who crossed the international border between Cuba and “GTMO” over the course of the twentieth century. We learn that GTMO was precedent setting in many ways: it was the first United States military base on foreign territory—established through the 1903 open lease agreement forced upon Cubans to end the U.S. occupation; GTMO began subcontracting through private companies for services and supplies in the mid-century; and the base became isolated from its “host country,” rendering it apparently subject to neither U.S. nor Cuban laws from the mid-1960s onward.