1.How were sugar and slavery part of Cuban history during the nineteenth century?  What legacies did they leave for the post-emancipation period?

2.Discuss the Cuban creole struggle for autonomy and independence between the 1860s and 1890s.  What motives and circumstances served as a backdrop to these struggles and how did Spanish authorities respond?

3.Discuss the role of the United States in Cuba between the 1890s and the early 1930s.

4.What role did Batista play in Cuban History between the 1930s and the 1950s?

5.How did the movement against Batista expand and succeed during the 1950s?  WHat circumstances prompted so many Cubans to join in the anti-dicatorial struggle?

6.How and why did Cuba experience a transition to Socialism and/or Couminsm between 1959 and the early 1960s?

7.What has been the role of women during the Cuban revolution?  How have they related to the revolutionary process and state and what benefits or problems have they experienced as a result?

8.What has Cuba's international role been since 1959?  How has Cuba's policies around the world related to the goal and methods of the Cuban Revolution?  Evaluate the results for Cuba and Cubans of its foreign roles.

9.Discuss the social life of workers and peasants under socialism.  How have they benefited or become entangled in the problems of the revolution and the construction of socialism in one island?  What policies have affected their standard of living? How do they related to the state and what institutions serve to link (or separate) the political elite and the state from the "masses"?

10.What is the "special period"?  How has it affected Cubans during the last near-decade?  What forces are responsible for Cuba's problems during this period and what solutions or failures have emerged as a result?