Behind the scenes of Fidel Castro's Cuba

In March this year an event took place that only a few years earlier would have been thought of as impossible – an American President shook hands with a Cuban leader in Havana.

This warming of relations between the two nations increasingly looks like it will signal the lifting of US sanctions - a measure that would effectively end a conflict dating back to dark days of the Cold War.

Back in 1962 the arrival of Russian nuclear missiles on a communist island 90 miles from Florida had brought the world to within days of Armageddon.

It also set the scene for decades of American hostility, alleged CIA attempts to assassinate Castro, and a crippling economic embargo.

Now though, in place of the old tune of capitalism versus communism, the rhetoric of the recent US/Cuba meeting spoke of business deals, tourism, trade, and détente.

It was clear that in the years to come Cuba would be forever changed.

Seen through this lens, a new book of photographs, Castro’s Cuba: An American Journalist’s Inside Look at Cuba, 1959–1969, presents a revealing glimpse of a world that will soon cease to be.

A glimpse all the more intriguing for being captured at the very moment that this brave new world was being forged.

American photo-journalist Lee Lockwood first visited Cuba in 1959 during the panicked final days of US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

There at a key moment in history, Lockwood witnessed Fidel Castro’s revolution seize power.

Over the next ten years, Lockwood gained unparalleled access to Castro and freedom to roam the island – an unheard of privilege for an American journalist.

Armed with his camera, Lockwood detailed the fascinating transition of the country as Castro’s forces swept away the old order of corruption dancing to the tune of the mighty American dollar.

The images show a Cuba frozen in time: crowds celebrating on the streets of Havana; Castro relaxing on a veranda with friends. Lockwood’s photos reflect this sense of hope and triumph before decades of US sanctions took their toll.

“It was a fabulous time." Lockwood, remembered years afterwards.

"For a moment, at least, even the most pessimistic suspended their twentieth-century cynicism and saw Fidel Castro as the incarnation of a legendary hero surrounded by an aura of magic, a bearded Parsifal who had brought miraculous deliverance to an ailing Cuba.”

Now, as America and Cuba forge ever closer ties, the remnants of Castro's communist experiment continue to fade away.

As a result, the value of images such as these will be to serve as testimony to the fact that, for a few decades, and regardless of how successful it was, a nation dared to dream of a better world.

Castro's Cuba: An American Journalist’s Inside Look at Cuba, 1959–1969 by Lee Lockwood is published by TASCHEN.