It was in Algeria that Cuba's involvement in Africa began. Until the overthrow of President Ben Bella in 1965, Algeria was Cuba's closest friend on the continent. Cuba provided both military and civilian assistance not only to the Algerian republic but also, before their victory, to the rebels of the Algerian National Liberation Front. Using Cuban documents, as well as US documents and interviews with protagonists, this article examines Cuba's relationship with Algeria in 1961–5. It is a relationship that clashes with the image of Cuban foreign policy – cynical ploys of a client state – that prevails not only in the United States but also in many European capitals.

This commentary article focuses on a crucial moment in the formation of Peruvian Creole nationalism: the 1836–9 Peruvian–Bolivian Confederation. Nationalist sentiments expressed through the anti-confederationist press, satiric poetry and pamphlets, glorified the Inca past while spurning the Indian present. During this period, a nationalist, essentially racist, rhetoric whose roots can be traced to the late eighteenth century, took shape. This rhetoric would provide the foundations of an ideology which has prevailed in Peruvian history. This rhetoric reached its peak in the twentieth century, while evolving into a historiographical discourse instrumental to the exercise of power and which is now in crisis.