Episode 155: 13 Days, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Fate of the Americas with Renata Keller

For 13 days beginning on October 16, 1962 the world teetered on total nuclear destruction. Today, Dr. Renata Keller joins in to talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis, how it is depicted in the film 13 Days, and how the events played out in Latin America. This is a deep dive into arguably the most consequential two weeks in world history.

About our guest:

Dr. Renata Keller specializes in Latin American and Cold War history. Her second book, The Fate of the Americas: The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Hemispheric Cold War (UNC Press, 2025), uncovers how people and governments across the Americas caused, participated in, and were affected by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Her first book, Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution (Cambridge, 2015), explored how the Cuban Revolution transformed Mexico’s domestic politics and international relations. It was awarded SECOLAS's Alfred B. Thomas Book Prize and honorable mentions for RMCLAS's Thomas McGann and Michael C. Meyer Prizes.

She received her B.A. in History and Spanish from Arizona State University and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. She taught international relations at Boston University for five years before joining the History Department at the University of Nevada in 2017. She has published journal articles in The Journal of Latin American Studies, The Journal of Cold War Studies, The Journal of Cold War History, The Latin American Research Review, Diplomatic History, Contexto Internacional, and Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, as well as popular articles in History Today and The Washington Post. Her research has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Philanthropic Educational Organization, the Kluge Center at the U.S. Library of Congress, the American Philosophical Society, and other institutions. She is co-editor of InterConnections: The Global Twentieth Century, a new book series at UNC Press that is home to innovative global, international, and transregional histories of the long twentieth century.

She is also a dedicated educator. She teaches classes on modern Latin American history, Cuban history, the global Cold War, and drugs and security in the Americas. She also enjoys training the next generation of thinkers, historians, and history teachers in my classes on historical research and writing, historiography, historiography of the Americas, and her graduate research seminar on twentieth-century history.