Mainstream Weekly

Cuban Revolution in Retrospect

Sandipto Dasgupta — 2009-01-26T11:47:54Z

The following article, that appeared in The Indian Express (December 31, 2008), is being reproduced, with due acknowledgement, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution which took place on January 1, 1959.
Half-a-century ago, to this day, the city of Santa Clara in Cuba fell to a guerrilla army led by Che Guevara. The next day, the Dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba, and triumphant guerrillas entered Havana to complete what would resonate around the world as the (…)

- January 2009

Watching History in Harlem

Sandipto Dasgupta — 2008-11-25T11:55:25Z

After he saw Napoleon march into Prussia after the Battle of Jena, an elated Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote that he had seen history on horseback. Barack Obama is no Napoleon, and I am certainly no Hegel, but there is no way I can avoid the word “history” when describing what I saw Tuesday night (November 4) in Harlem.
From around 5 in the evening, long before any of the polls closed, people started gathering around the massive television screen set up a stone's throw away from the (…)

- November 22, 2008