Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life - Jon Lee Anderson

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life - Jon Lee Anderson

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Short Description

Full bibliographic data for Che Guevara

Title

Che Guevara

Subtitle

A Revolutionary Life

Authors and contributors

By (author) Jon Lee Anderson

Physical properties

Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 832
Width: 153 mm
Height: 234 mm
Thickness: 58 mm
Weight: 1,070 g

Audience

General/trade

Language

English

ISBN

ISBN 13: 9780553406641
ISBN 10: 0553406647

Classifications

BISAC category code:HIS031000
BISAC category code:HIS038000
BIC geographical qualifier:1KJC
BISAC category code:POL035000
Nielsen BookScan Product Class:T4.2
BICMainSubject:JPWQ
BIC subject category:BGH
BISAC category code:BIO010000
Dewey:972.91064092
BIC time period qualifier:3JJPG

Illustrations note

b&w photographs

Publisher

Transworld Publishers Ltd

Imprint name

Bantam Books (Transworld Publishers a division of the Random House Group)

Publication date

02 October 1997

Publication City/Country

London/GB

Main description

Massive political biography on the most famous revolutionary of the century, with a cast of world figures such as Castro, Kennedy, Kruschev, Mao, and Jean-Paul Sartre, and tales of intrigue between Moscow and Washington, the revolutonary capitals of Havana and Algiers, and the exile havens of Guatemala and Miami. The first complete biography benefitting from access to Cuban government sources and the co-operation of Che's widow. 32pp b/w photographs.

Review text

A sweeping biography of the Latino revolutionary and pop-culture hero. Anderson (Guerrillas, 1992), a journalist with a longtime interest in Latin American affairs, steers clear of ideology, arguing that the Argentinian-born Guevara was both a brilliant tactician and fighter (a conclusion sure to please his admirers) and the truest representative of the old international communist agitator the State Department warned us about (a conclusion equally sure to please Guevara's detractors). Anderson writes at some length about Che's early bohemian days, spent ranging up and down the Americas on a motorcycle, looking for kicks. He goes on to persuasively establish that Guevara's connection with Fidel Castro came much earlier than the standard sources suggest. He also proves beyond doubt that Guevara was captured and executed by Bolivian counterinsurgency rangers and not killed, as the official story had it, in a firefight, automatic weapon in hand. Anderson traces the strange influence of the politics of the Argentine dictator Juan Perno on Guevara, analyzes the utterly disastrous mid-1960s Cuban intervention in the Congo, and considers Castro and Guevara's sometimes tense relationship. He shows that Castro did not include Guevara in the publicly visible Cuban revolutionary leadership because Castro feared that featuring an avowed Marxist would alienate his non-communist allies. (For their pan, he writes, the Soviets could never be sure whether Guevara was not truly a Maoist and held him in deep suspicion.) Drawing on a vast range of interviews and secondary sources, including little-known Latin American documents and material from the archives of the KGB, Anderson paints a portrait of Guevara as both hero and fanatic. The author's fondness for showering the reader with every detail he has uncovered makes this sprawling book sometimes tough slogging, but students of Che's life and deeds need look no farther than Anderson's volume. (Kirkus Reviews)

Review quote

"Masterly and absorbing" -- Frank McLynn The Sunday Times "Brilliantly evoked... The portrait is now as complete as it will ever be" -- Alberto Manguel The Times Literary Supplement "Absorbing and convincing... an indispensable work of contemporary history" Guardian

Biographical note

Jon Lee Anderson is an American journalist and writer.

Promotional headline

The first definitive biography of Ernesto Che Guevara, the twentieth century's supreme revolutionary martyr.