Book Presentation and Conversation: To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause
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| Venue: | FIU-SIPAII-Room 102 |
Join the Green School for a book presentation and conversation featuring To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Dr. Benjamin Nathans, who will be joined by historians Carlos Eire and Rebecca Friedman.
Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was challenged by a dissident movement that captured the world’s imagination. Against all odds, these courageous individuals undermined the fearsome Soviet system and helped hasten its collapse three decades later. Taking its title from a toast offered at dissident gatherings, Dr. Nathans’s book tells the story of a remarkable group of people whose moral courage helped change the world. Their activism inspired movements in other totalitarian regimes, including Castro’s Cuba. Despite the island’s distance from the Soviet Union—geographically and culturally—the parallels between the Soviet and Cuban dissident movements are striking. This event explores a powerful story of hope and the enduring supremacy of human dignity over tyranny.
Introduction
Sebastian A. Arcos, M.P.A., is the Interim Director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. Born in Havana, he became involved in Cuba’s first independent human-rights organization and later worked with the U.S. State Department on Cuban-human-rights issues. At FIU he also holds degrees in International Relations (B.A.) and Public Administration (M.P.A.). He is a frequent commentator on Cuban politics and society.
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Guest Speakers
Benjamin Nathans, Ph.D., is the Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches on the Soviet Union, Imperial Russia, modern Jewish history and human-rights history. He earned his B.A. at Yale and his M.A./Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. His latest book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement, was awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for its incisive account of Soviet dissent.
Carlos Eire, Ph.D., is a Cuban-born historian, memoirist and author who came to the United States at age 11 through Operation Peter Pan. Born in Havana in 1950, he vividly recounts his experiences of exile, loss and identity in Cuba through his acclaimed memoirs Waiting for Snow in Havana and Learning to Die in Miami. While his academic work at Yale University focuses on religious and intellectual history, Eire is widely recognized for his reflections on Cuban life, culture and history, offering personal and historical insight into the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban diaspora.
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Moderator
Rebecca Friedman, Ph.D., is Professor of History and Founding Director of the Green School Public Humanities Lab at Florida International University. Her research centers on the history and culture of modern Russia, especially issues of gender, domestic life and identity. Prior to her current role, she directed the Miami-Florida Jean Monnet Center of Excellence and the European and Eurasian Studies program at FIU. Her recent monograph, Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Modern Russia: Time at Home, was published in 2020.
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Presented in collaboration with
- Cuban Research Institute
Co-sponsored by
- Dorothea Green Lecture Series
- Ruth K. & Shepard Broad Distinguished Lecture Series
- Department of History
- European & Eurasian Studies Program
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Should you need an ADA accommodation to participate in a university event, program, or activity or need to request materials in an accessible format, please contact FIU’s Office of Civil Rights Compliance and Accessibility (CRCA) at 305-348-2785 or accommodations@fiu.edu. All requests for ADA accommodation or accessible materials for this event must be submitted to CRCA at least seven (7) business days prior to the event or at the earliest possible opportunity.
