Before Fidel Castro died in 2016, he asked that no statues or monuments be erected in his honor. His grave at Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba consists of a simple granite boulder marked by a small plaque, emblazoned with a solitary word: FIDEL.

My father’s generation, which came of age during the Cold War, thought Castro was a totalitarian madman , on par with other mid-twentieth-century communists. But who was Castro really, and what was he faithful to?

In spring 2004, I made my first scholarly trip to Cuba. I was there to attend a workshop on the Cuban military, and I hoped to make connections for a book I was writing on the history of the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay. The Cuban scholars I met were cordial and welcoming, despite open hostility between our two governments. I returned home with fresh leads and promises of future assistance.

The spirit of good will evaporated two years later, when the Bush administration greeted news of Fidel Castro’s illness and cessation of power with euphoria and predictions about the imminent collapse of Cuban communism. For the next few years, Cuba remained all but closed to American scholars, forcing historians like me to finish our books with other sources.