Perhaps the foremost social analyst and journalist on Cuban affairs, Carlos Alberto Montaner has written a definitive study of the Cuban regime from the vantage point of the Cuban dictator. This is not simply a history of Cuban communism but rather a personal history of its leader, Fidel Castro. Montaner's extraordinary knowledge of the country and its politics prevents the work from becoming a psychiatric examination from afar. Indeed, what personal irrationalities exist are seen as built into the fabric of the regime itself, and not simply as a personality aberration.

Fidel...