On one side, the past: 50 years of isolation from the modern world has preserved an ecological paradise. Etc. Foreign tourists were confined to a few stretches of seacoast. But the authoritarian nightmare that Cubans endured on a daily basis left an unforeseen legacy. Poor as they are, they possess riches beyond measure. Cuba is a Garden of Eden: the last large-scale example of what the Caribbean was like a hundred years ago.
