Daniel A. Rodriguez, "The Right to Live in Health: Medical Politics in Postindependence Havana" (U North Carolina Press, 2020)

The podcast explores the relationship between healthcare and the state in Cuba, particularly in the pre-revolutionary period. It challenges the assumption that the concept of healthcare as a citizen's right originated solely with the Cuban Revolution. The discussion highlights how mass death during the brutal Spanish colonial rule intertwined medicine and politics, leading to a medical nationalist project. The podcast further examines how poverty and gender influenced public health discourses, with women often blamed for high infant mortality rates despite structural economic issues. The episode also touches on the 1934 medical strike, where Cuban physicians, influenced by a growing medical left, advocated for a state-run medical system to address economic challenges and healthcare disparities.