Sugar, the backbone of the Cuban economic life for centuries, continues to dominate the economy of socialist Cuba.  After initial attempts at diversification following the Revolution, the Cuban regime rehabilitated the sugar industry in 1965, making the country again vulnerable to swings in world market prices and the dangers of overdependence on a single agricultural product.

Pérez-López examines the various efforts at economic planning in the years following the Revolution and provides in-depth analysis of aspects particular to the sugar industry: cultivation, mechanization, energy and transportation, refining and the manufacture of sugar derivatives, production costs, and foreign trade.

Jorge Pérez-López is executive director of the Fair Labor Association, having served 31 years in the U.S. government, first in the Bureau of International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor and then as the Director of the Office of International Economic Affairs.