The author challenges both assumptions in Cuba the Morning After, a major study of U.S.-Cuban relations. He suggests that this island is mired in history and fantasy--in thrall to an economic and social system that does not work and cannot work. Communism has shattered a once-rich civil society, one that cannot be rapidly reconstructed, particularly in the absence of a small-business class and a freer access to organized political activity. Fear of the future, declining demographies, a culture of dependency, and a tendency to opt out for emigration to the United States add to the mixture.