Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
by Jon Lee Anderson
List Price:
Our Price: $9.97
You Save: $10.03 (50%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.29 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Jon Lee AndersonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-03-09
ISBN: 0802135587
Number of pages: 814
Publisher: Grove Press
Book Reviews of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
Book Review: A revolutionary life and death
Summary: 5 Stars
Among Communism's dead and dying giants, Che Guevara stands out. Few of them lived a shorter life; the job title of "Major Communist Figure" seemed to grant Fidel Castro, Deng Xiaoping, Kim Il Sung and others a Methuselah-like longevity, whereas Che didn't live to see his fortieth birthday. But few, too, lived a life so chock full of romantic adventure, intrigue, myth and mystery. It's a life that retains a certain allure, a life that, to many, still seems worthy of veneration and emulation.
It is difficult to write a biography about someone larger than life, hard to convey both the person and the myth, but Anderson has done a stellar job on both fronts. Besides being well written, "Che" is excellently and thoroughly researched, a far more difficult and important feat: given the timing of Che's life and the ages of his contemporaries, Anderson's interviews and discussions with many of the major players in his life and death mean that this book will remain the definitive work on the subject. Importantly, too, Anderson shows us not the blown-up and distorted figure so many have seen, but the true dimensions of a man and his actions.
On one level, those actions were considerable: the Argentinian-born Che lived a truly epic life. After a relatively secure youth, Che trained to be a doctor, then embarked with a friend on a continent-spanning motorcycle journey before his studies were up. It was, perhaps, a sign of things to come: throughout his life, Che seemed better at starting new things than at bringing old things to a successful close.
Che's journey helped crystallize the sentiments that would underpin his life: ever after, he retained a pan-Latin American sensibility, a sympathy for the region's poor and downtrodden, and a belief that the United States was to blame for the region's ills. In support of those beliefs, he first played a bit part in Guatemala's ill-fated revolution, then joined Fidel Castro's revolution-in-training in Mexico.
Castro and company's subsequent landing in Cuba seemed like a quixotic undertaking: he, Che, and a mere handful of men were attempting to foment an island-wide revolution. But they succeeded, against seemingly impossible odds, driving Batista's regime from power and finding themselves triumphantly holding the levers of power in Havana. And that success was, in many ways, Che's undoing.
At the ripe old age of thirty, Che found himself one of the most important men in Cuba. And, mindful of the Guatemalan revolution's untimely demise, Che helped Castro cement the Cuban revolution by ruthlessly purging the island of those who weren't committed to it. But his temperament remained that of the brash revolutionary, not that of the patient technocrat he was asked to become, and when it came time to actually run the country, to make the revolution a success, Che and his ilk were failures.
Anderson does a masterful job in describing how disasterous the Cuban revolution was for Cuba. In distancing themselves from the United States and putting their country in the Soviet orbit, Castro and Che wreaked havoc on the Cuban economy. Che was a fanatical and austere idealist truly committed to his cause, but few shared his level of committment; many of those with the technical know-how to keep the nation's sugar mills running fled the country rather than work for a man who knew a little about revolutions but very little about running an economy. "Cuba's revolutionaries clearly had not thought through the consequences of going for a complete break with the United States," Anderson writes, going on to describe the myriad problems that brought the island nation's economy to a grinding standstill: sulphuric Soviet petroleum that corroded the piping in American-built refineries, Soviet technicians unable to deal with modern American technology, and even metric Soviet tools that couldn't be used to fix American-built machines.
Given these setbacks, it is little wonder Che lost patience with the life of the bureaucrat and sought to reprise his signal triumph by fomenting revolutions in the Congo and, later, Bolivia. For a brief moment in time, the revolutionary dream seemed real and powerful again; Che envisioned a worldwide struggle against what he viewed as American imperialism and saw himself as the man to ignite this revolutionary world war. Not until bin Laden would the United States find a similarly implacable and mysterious foe willing to do battle and inspire followers at every corner of the globe.
But Che the myth was more powerful than Che the man. In both the Congo and Bolivia, Anderson writes, Che made the mistake of "foisting himself unannounced" on a pre-existing local rebellion, acting as if his presence alone would make the difference between success and failure. Such tactics didn't endear him with the local Communist leaders, let alone the populations-at-large in those nations; rather than leading a popular revolution in Bolivia, Che and his men found themselves alone and on the run, abandoned even by many of their fellow Communists, hounded into the mountains by government forces aided and abetted by the CIA, there to be finally captured and executed.
Still, the myth lived on; austere, handsome, and devoted to his cause, Che became more useful in death than he had been in life, more successful as a poster child for Cuba's revolution than he had been as a man helping to run it. Consequently, his life retained its allure even after the death of the ideology for which he gave it.
There are some faults in Anderson's book. It could have used one more edit; this reviewer found a couple typos which will hopefully be corrected in subsequent editions. More importantly, although Anderson excellently conveys Che's character, both his strengths (determination and idealism) and his weaknesses (hubris and naivete), he doesn't do as well in describing others in Che's life: some secondary characters remain ill-understood at the book's conclusion. Lastly, he gives relatively short shrift to some rather important events, like the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What we do learn about that episode is fascinating, though, and speaks to the strength of Anderson's book: Che seemed quite willing to have his adopted homeland vaporized in a nuclear war for the sake of the revolutionary ideal. It is in such details that Anderson illuminates the dark side of the Guevara myth, and for that, we must thank him, for he has painted a full and complete portrait that rounds out our knowledge of this fascinating man. Those interested in him need look no further than this book: before reading it, I understood little about Che; after reading it, I felt I knew the man.
Summary of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
This New York Times “Notable Book of the Year? is the definitive biography on Che Guevara, whose epic dream was to end poverty and injustice in Latin America through armed revolution. Anderson?s biography traces Che?s extraordinary life, from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the Cuban revolution, from the halls of power in Castro?s government to his failed campaign in the Congo and assassination in the Bolivian jungle.
Even to those without Marxist sympathies, Che Guevara (1928-67) was a dashing, charismatic figure: the asthmatic son of an aristocratic Argentine family whose sympathy for the world's oppressed turned him into a socialist revolutionary, the valued comrade-in-arms of Cuba's Fidel Castro and a leader of guerilla warfare in Latin America and Africa. Journalist Jon Lee Anderson's lengthy and absorbing portrait captures the complexities of international politics (revolutionary and counter); his painstaking research has unearthed a remarkable amount of new material, including information about Guevara's death at the hands of the Bolivian military.
Historical Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Historical Books
Alexander Hamiltonby Ron Chernow
Penguin Audio; Published: 2004-04-26; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $171.76
America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (Penguin Classics)by John Steinbeck
Penguin Classics; Published: 2003-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Sailing Alone around the World (Penguin Classics)by Joshua Slocum
Penguin Classics; Published: 1999-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.94
Price in other shops:
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sistersby Charlotte Mosley
Harper; Published: 2007-11-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.89
Price in other shops:
Profiles in Courage (slipcased edition): Decisive Moments in the Lives of Celebrated Americansby John F. Kennedy
Harper; Published: 2006-10-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Lost Years: A Memoir 1945 - 1951by Christopher Isherwood
HarperCollins; Published: 2000-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.14
Price in other shops:
Thomas Jefferson: A Lifeby Willard Sterne Randall
Harper Perennial; Published: 1994-06-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.19
Price in other shops:
The Professor and the Madmanby Simon Winchester
Harper; Published: 1998-08-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.76
Price in other shops:
Patton: A Genius for Warby Carlo D'Este, este, Carlo D'
Harpercollins; Published: 1995-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.94
Stonewall Jacksonby James Robertson
Macmillan Pub.; Published: 1997-02-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $47.66
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiographyby Ignacio Ramonet, Fidel Castro
Scribner; Published: 2008-01-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.94
Price in other shops:
Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War: Authorized Edition (Che Guevara Publishing Project)by Ernesto Che Guevara
Ocean Press; Published: 2005-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.66
Price in other shops:
The Ugly Americanby Eugene Burdick, William J. Lederer
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 1999-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.18
Price in other shops:
Zapata and the Mexican Revolutionby John Womack
Vintage; Published: 1970-09-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.98
Price in other shops:
Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truthby Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi
Beacon Press; Published: 1993-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.84
Price in other shops:
Manifesto: Three Classic Essays on How to Change the Worldby Ernesto Che Guevara, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg
Ocean Press; Published: 2005; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.66
Price in other shops:
Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevaraby Ernesto Che Guevara
Ocean Press; Published: 2009-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.17
Price in other shops:
Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevaraby Jorge G. Castaneda
Vintage; Published: 1998-10-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.48
Price in other shops:
The Motorcycle Diaries (Movie Tie-in Edition) : Notes on a Latin American Journeyby Ernesto Che Guevara
Ocean Press; Published: 2004-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.57
Price in other shops:
Guerrilla Warfareby Ernesto Che Guevara
bnpublishing.com; Published: 2007-10-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.26
Price in other shops: