Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life [Paperback]

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Although Ernesto "Che" Guevara was captured and killed in the mountains of Bolivia in 1967 at the age of 39, his thought and example continue to affect revolutionary movements throughout the world. Much has been written about this guerrilla fighter, ideologue, and world leader, but an adequate biography has not been available, in part because of restrictions on information imposed by the Cuban government. Assisted by Che's widow and family, journalist Anderson (Guerrillas, LJ 9/1/92) was able to interview close friends and associates of Che throughout the world, including in Russia and Cuba. Anderson also gained access to Cuban archives and documents never before consulted. He has written an important journalistic biography that is sympathetic to this influential figure. Though controversy will surround this book (as it always does when the subject is Che), this is an important volume that should be in all academic and most public libraries.?Mark L. Grover, Brigham Young Univ., Provo
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Earlier this year, there was an exceptional and exciting novel, The Dancer Upstairs, about a Latin American revolutionary and his captor by reporter Nicholas Shakespeare. Soon to be published is this exceptional and exciting biography of the life and death of the larger-than-life revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine doctor who joined with Castro to overturn Fulgencio Batista's reign in Cuba, and it is written by a reporter. Anderson broke the story about the location of Che Guevara's burial site in 1996 and now uses much of the rest of his formidable research to fill this ample history of Che, which is, as well, a significant history of the turbulent post^-World War II world of Latin America. Unlike other works about Che and that time, this one reflects information derived from the unpublished diaries controlled by Che's widow, Aleida March; from Cuban government archives that were sealed to outsiders (Cuba is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Che and his comrades through 1997); and from current, revealing interviews of Che's closest friends and comrades. Anderson's up-close look, with beauty marks and tragic flaw so effortlessly rendered, brings the reader face to face with a man whose "unshakable faith in his beliefs was made more powerful by his unusual combination of romantic passion and a coldly analytical mind." Readers can identify with Che's concern for the poor and hungry, even if that identification is tempered in our rush to store up goods, even if giving alms to the poor is more fashionable than taking a heroic stance to elevate them. This book, with its 89 photographs, will be an invaluable addition to the literature of American revolutionaries. Bonnie Smothers --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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 Per¢n 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 noncommunist allies. (For their part, 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. (16 pages photos, not seen) (First printing of 40,000; $75,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

REVISED AND UPDATED THROUGHOUT

Jon Lee Anderson's definitive and acclaimed biography of Che Guevara manages to transcend the myth of Che and portray in unrivaled detail a complicated human being. In his quest to discover who the real Che was, Anderson moved to Havana and gained unprecedented access to the personal archives maintained by Che's widow. He spent months with Che's old friends in Argentina, where Che was born into an aristocratic family and went to medical school. He interviewed Che's comrades from battles fought in Cuba and the Congo and Bolivia, and he talked to figures on both sides of the Cold War, in Moscow and in the CIA.

The book completes the epic saga of an extraordinary life. In 1995, Anderson broke the story of how Che's body had been secretly hidden after his assassination in Bolivia in 1967. He recounts how the body was finally recovered, thirty years after the murder, brought back to Cuba, and interred in the place Che had won his most famous battle in the Cuban revolution. Meticulously researched, Anderson's book reveals many details of Che's life that were long cloaked in secrecy and intrigue. This edition, which has been carefully revised and updated, has a new introduction and epilogue, new maps, and a new chronology of Che's life.