http://revistahistoria.universia.net 132 132 RESEÑA Juan Carlos Medel University of California, Davis, CA, United States jmedeltoro@ucdavis. edu Living Ideology in Cuba. Socialism in Principle and Practice. Katherine A. Gordy This book represents an important contribution for studies on ideology. Katherine Gordy, professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, develops an excellent analysis of ideology and the production of subjects and subjectivities. Her book challenges traditional negative approaches to study the concept of ideology, offering a more positive interpretation of the concept. Her main argument is that critical thought and critical contestation are central features of Cuban socialism, rather than a threat to it. In this way, against the official anti-Cuban idea of “lack of debate” in the Revolution, Gordy shows how open and intense have been the political debates in Cuba in the last decades. In the first chapter, the author studies the ideological links between the independence at the end of nineteenth century and the Revolution that started in 1959 in Cuba. In this way, she analyzes the links between nationalism and socialism within the narrative of the Cuban Revolution. In the second chapter, Gordy addresses the relationship between culture and Revolution in Cuba, analyzing the nature of political thought and its different contexts during the Revolution. Specifically, she addresses the famous speech “Words to Intellectuals” by Fidel Castro in the first years of the Revolution. Against the traditional narrative that stresses that this speech marked the end of political debate in the young Cuban Revolution, she convincingly argues that this speech actually opened the debate about culture and the role of intellectuals in the Revolution. According to her, this speech invigorated the political debate about the meanings of Cuban socialism in the island. In chapter three, the author addresses the economic ideas of Ernesto Che Guevara. Using the debate about the choice between (Soviet) economic calculus and (Guevara) budgetary system to build a socialist economy that the Cuban state confronted during the 60s, Gordy analyzes the socialist principles of the Cuban Revolution. Gordy points out that, according to Guevara, the differences between the Soviet alternative and his budgetary system were not in the means but in the ends. Thus, Gordy shows how the traditional and apparent dichotomy between idealism (Guevara) and pragmatism (Soviet) is DOI 10.3232/RHI.2016. V9.N1.08 Viviendo la ideología en Cuba. Socialismo en principios y práctica Vivendo a ideologia em Cuba. Socialismo em princípios e prática Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2015, 284 páginas, ISBN: 978-0472072613