Archibald Ritter
Archibald
Ritter is a Canadian citizen living in Ottawa Canada, married with five
children and some grandchildren. He is a “Distinguished Research
Professor Emeritus” in the Department of Economics and the Norman
Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in
Ottawa.
He
holds a BA in Economics from Queen’s University, an MA in Economics
from the University of Western Ontario and a Ph.D. in Economics with a
minor in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Besides
his employment at Carleton University, he has worked in the United
Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in
Santiago Chile (1973-1974), the Department of Energy Mines and
Resources, Government of Canada (1979-1981) and has also lived and
worked in Kenya and Tanzania.
He
has had a long interest in Cuba beginning perhaps with the chance
reading of “Listen Yankee” by C. Wright Mills (an effective piece of
propaganda). Or maybe it began with a previous interest in the French
Revolution – which ran amok. But maybe the real origin of his obsession
with Cuba was that his Father smoked White Owl cigars, which at that
time were made from Cuban tobacco but wrapped in Connecticut leaf. For
this reason, being in Cuba has always felt like being at home. He has
visited Cuba frequently since 1965. He was an initiator on the Canadian
side and was the coordinator on the Canadian side for the Masters in
Economics Program provided with the University of Havana for young Cuban
professors from 1994 to 1999, financed by the International Development
Research Centre and the Canadian International Development Agency.
He
has published a variety of works on Cuba’s development policies and
experience including The Economic Development of Revolutionary Cuba:
Strategy and Performance, New York: Praeger 1974; Cuba in the
International System: Integration and Normalization, (editor), London:
Macmillan, 1995; with co-editor J. Kirk; and The Cuban Economy,
(editor), Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.
Read more ›
