On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro, then a lawyer and staunch opponent of the Batista dictatorship, led a group of followers in an attack on the Cuban army garrisons at Moncada and Bayamo. The attacks were poorly planned and executed and ended in disastrous failure. Castro, who later surrendered, displayed a remarkable ability to manipulate public perceptions. At his trial and famous history will absolve me speech, he painted the attack as a ringing success in the opening struggle against tyranny. Today, of course, the attack is celebrated across Cuba as the beginning of the revolution. De la Cova is a native of Havana and an assistant professor of Latino studies at Indiana University. He has provided a systematic and scrupulously balanced study of the attacks and their aftermath that serves to dispel many of the myths that have been propagated and accepted for decades. Previous accounts were overly dependent on official versions, but the author has utilized extensive interviews with survivors from both sides. This is a valuable reexamination of a pivotal event. Jay Freeman, Booklist

"From the beginning of the Cuban Republic on May 20, 1902, there had never been as bloody and tragic a day in Cuban history as July 26, 1953 when Fidel Castro sought to make a name for himself with an armed attack on the Moncada garrison in Santiago de Cuba. Antonio de la Cova's book constitutes the most thorough and serious historical account ever written of that infamous episode in Cuban history."—U.S. Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida's Twenty-First District

"Though the Cuban civil war of the late 1950s has been well-documented, not as widely known outside of Cuba is an attack made in July 1953 by a band of rebels led by Fidel Castro against the large Moncada barracks. Though the attack failed, it signaled the emergence of Castro on the national scene. Minute by minute, step by step, Antonio de la Cova has traced the background and action of these events. The result of three decades of in-depth research, delving through primary documents, and interviewing survivors, The Moncada Attack is a tour de force and places de la Cova in the front ranks of historians writing about Cuba."—Jay Mallin, Sr., author of Covering Castro: Rise and Decline of Cuba's Communist Dictator

"Few topics remain as shrouded in humbug as the Cuban Revolution. A barrier of strict taboos has hindered researchers in this field, but de la Cova—to the immense benefit of anyone interested in facts—crosses that barrier and thus debunks the most cherished tenets of Castro apologia. In this book we see Fidel Castro as a shrewd megalomaniac with little regard for human life and with a clear plan for Cuba. De la Cova has a fanatical penchant for ascertaining facts. The result is this fascinating and groundbreaking book, surely a landmark in Cuba scholarship."—Humberto Fontova, author of Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant and Exposing The Real Che Guevara and The Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him

"Since the early 1950s, Castro's revolution has been a great source of myths, false or over-inflated statements, and political fairy tales. Finally, Antonio de la Cova gives us a well-documented book that demystifies the past and tells what really happened on that sad, legendary day of July 26, 1953, at the Moncada barracks."—Paquito D'Rivera, author of My Sax Life: A Memoir