Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-431) and index.

Prologue : the secret war -- I. In search of monsters to destroy -- The entrails -- Good neighbours -- Quacking like a duck -- Comrades -- II. Cuba libre -- "A lot of fuss by a bunch of communists" -- "The minds of unsophisticated peoples" -- "Not red but olive green" -- "Our real friends" -- "A crusade to save free enterprise" -- III. Cockfight -- Regime change -- "One of the most ridiculous things that has ever occurred in the history of the United States" -- The death of the goat -- Throwing a hedgehog down Uncle Sam's pants -- Apocalypse now? -- IV. Fallout -- Papadocracy -- Bad news -- Another Cuba -- Zombies.

The Caribbean crises of the Cold War are presented in this story of clashing ideologies, the rise of the politics of fear, the machinations of superpowers, and the brazen daring of the mavericks who took them on. During the period of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the United States and the Soviet Union acted out the world's tensions on three important island nations, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, the leaders of these nations--the charismatic Fidel Castro and his mysterious brother Raúl; the ideologue Che Guevara; the capricious psychopath Rafael Trujillo; and Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a buttoned-down doctor with interests in Vodou, embezzlement and torture--had ambitions of their own. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann's narrative follows these five rivals and accomplices from the beginning of the Cold War to its end.--From publisher description.