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Fidel Castro, by Robert E. Quirk
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In this masterly biography, the prize-winning historian Robert E. Quirk paints a portrait of the charismatic leader who for more than three decades―and over eight American presidencies―managed to sustain a communist regime in the western hemisphere.
In gripping detail, Quirk follows Castro as his first, failed attempt to bring down the regime of Fulgencio Batista is followed by the small-scale attacks from the Sierra Maestra mountains that culminate in the dictator's flight from Cuba in 1959 and Castro's sweep into power. The story provides a new account of Castro's relations with the United States and the Soviet Union, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 Missile Crisis, and an analysis of the successes and failures of his regime to the present day.
In its breadth and drama, Fidel Castro is more than the story of one ambitious man steering his nation on a dangerous and doomed course. It is also a parable of a small country caught up in the throes of international rivalries and world revolution.
- Sales Rank: #1315387 in Books
- Published on: 1995-08-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.30" h x 1.70" w x 6.10" l, 2.44 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 898 pages
From Publishers Weekly
One comes away from this major biography with an image of the Cuban dictator as a man who is a leader but not a thinker or innovator. Emphasizing Castro's often wrongheaded impulsiveness, Quirk ( The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church ) chronicles how his foreign and domestic crash programs have done Cuba more harm than good. Quirk's richly detailed, psychologically acute portrait reveals more about Castro's unique personality and character than do previous biographies. A thorough examination of the leader's homophobia and difficulties with women, for instance, reveals a life spent being looked after by females without being able to form a lasting sexual relationship with any of them--including the 20-year association with protective lioness Celia Sanchez, which the author likens to that between a son and doting mother. Quirk's concluding assessment of the Maximum Leader is harsh: Castro, he argues, has become a caricature of his earlier self. History, far from absolving him, has simply passed him by. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
In a vivid, fascinating portrait of Cuba's ``Maximum Leader,'' Quirk (The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910-29, 1973, etc.--not reviewed) traces Castro's evolution from marginalized radical to Communist dictator. Castro, the son of an uncultured nouveau riche farmer from Spain, was educated in religious schools and at the Univ. of Havana, where he received a law degree and where, though undistinguished academically, he had experiences important for his radical career: He joined several groups of insubordinate student- hoodlums, and he organized a protest that resulted in the burning of buses. In recounting his subject's career as a radical (after Batista seized power in 1952, Castro abandoned his law practice for full-time radical politics), Quirk emphasizes the utter ordinariness of events that Castro later invested with mythological significance--particularly his unsuccessful ragtag attack on the Moncada barracks in July 1952; his friendship with the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara; his 1956 return to Cuba with 90 followers in the leaky yacht Granma (which resulted in the immediate capture or death of most of Castro's force); and his struggle in the Sierra Maestra against increasingly demoralized government forces. Quirk shows that Castro, though long influenced by Marxist writings, identified his movement as Communist only after repeated confrontations with the US over American business activity in Cuba. Castro militarized the nation's economy and, in accordance with Soviet policy, tried to export revolution to the rest of Latin America as well as to Africa, even while brutally stifling civil liberties and dissent at home. Quirk ends with a look at Castro's refusal to reform his political system despite declining living standards and international isolation in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union: ``By all appearances...[Castro] would see Cuba destroyed before he gave up his authority and his prerogatives.'' A balanced, well-written, and definitive examination of the long, turbulent, and often unheroic career of the architect of Cuba's revolution. (Photographs) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"A broad and often devastating indictment of its subject and his historical role. . . . An encyclopedic study of [Castro's] rise to power." -Mark A. Uhlig, New York Times Book Review -- Mark A. Uhlig
A broad and often devastating indictment of its subject and his historical role. . . . An encyclopedic study of [Castro's] rise to power. --Mark A. Uhlig"
Most helpful customer reviews
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
On Fidel and Fidelismo
By A Customer
I have read this book recently as well as all of the reviews by customers. There's some amazing stuff in these reviews, by the way, ranging from "I like Cubans and they are cool people" to "I hate Texans and patriotism."
Whatever. Quirk's book is an excellent treatment of Castro and of the troubled history of a small nation often caught between two struggling superpowers, whether it was Spain and the US or Russia and the US. I think he captures the essence of Castro's adventurer friend Ernesto Guevara (a murdering dilettante who has, amazingly, become a cult hero in death mainly because of his looks and a good press agent named Herbert Matthews)and of his effeminate brother Raul as well. I have spoken with Jose Pardo Llada, who was an early supporter of Castro and knew him intimately for many years. Pardo is also one of the main references used by Quirk (he uses Pardo's "Fidel" and "El Che" extensively, for example, in the early chapters) and Pardo feels that Quirk has captured the leadership styles of Castro quite well. Yes, the man is charismatic but also highly erratic and given to extreme highs and extreme lows. He is also very, very clever and knows how to use the stage to his benefit. These are Castro's qualities and behaviors, and Quirk does a solid job in capturing and describing them.
I particularly like the analysis of Castro's youth and of the environment from which he emerged. Three rather clear elements seem to define his personality and Quirk highlighted them indirectly: the anti-americanism that he witnessed in his home as a child (his father came from Spain as a raw recruit to fight the Americans); his Galician ancestry, which subjected him to the ridicule that all "gallegos" in Cuba have had to endure; and his rural (guajiro) upbringing, which again pitted him against the more cosmopolitan young people he would meet in Havana's Belen School and who were sure to let him know he was not one of them.
On the charge that Quirk is biased (presumably against Castro and pro USA), I am not sure where that evidence is. The segments about the CIA and their role in trying to dislodge Castro are brutally honest and unbiased, in my opinion. It certainly makes the CIA look very human, if not downright bumbling and dogmatically arrogant. It is not very complimentary of US presidents either. And some parts of the book seem too formulaic, going day by day in rather tedious form and analyzing Castro's ten-hour speeches in way too much detail for my tastes.
But, undoubtedly, if you detest "patriotism" and Texan accents, and if you believe Communists and the European Left are the cat's whiskers, then you may not like the well-researched and documented facts in Quirk's book. Otherwise, it is excellent.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Quirk on Fidel Castro
By Gus Venegas
Though a bit long and tedious 900 pages, this is an excellent comprehensive and well-organized biography of Fidel Castro: from the days of his childhood to his rise to power in Cuba and the world stage. Quirk's first chapter is probably the best 30-page narration of Castro's pre-revolutionary days, from his childhood in his father's affluent plantation, thru his Havana University days and initial affiliation with Eduardo Chibas' liberal flavored Orthodox Party. Quirk tells us more about life at the Castro estates that by the 1920's, Castro's father had become wealthy, with close to 25,000 acres, one of the largest estates in Cuba. We learn that from childhood Fidel Castro respected and admired his father's strong macho and much feared persona and counted weapons as his most prized possessions- including rifles, pistols and shotguns. His life, as a child and as a revolutionary, was one long love affair with firearms and his speeches would have many references to blood and to the prospects of violence and death.
I was highly impressed with Quirk's narration of the early days of the Cuban Revolution (1959-60), a period when Fidel Castro deceived his liberal and moderate allies in the struggle against Batista back from the Moncada days in 1953, was able to form an alliance with the Communists starting in 1959, consolidating his power as defense minister and eventually having a strong enough power base by mid-1960 when he cancelled elections, suppressed freedom of the press, and started a campaign of property confiscation. Castro's interaction with high level cabinet members is covered, showing his micromanagement style and tendency to provide direction in capricious whims on anything from the agrarian reform to housing projects. Events in 1959-60, such as the cancellation of elections and the confiscation of private property, set up confrontations with the U.S., which resulted in the Bays of Pigs in 1961 and the Missile Crises in 1962. However, little mention is made of Castro's interventionism in Latin America starting in 1959. Quirk goes on to end with Castro's heady days of adventurism in Africa and to his authoritarian control of a country that he has wrecked politically and economically. As a matter of fact, Quirk's biography of Castro is one of the top recommendations in my book Memories from the Land of the Intolerant Tyrant (available from Blue Note Books).
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Welcome addition
By A Customer
This is book is a welcome addition and sheds much needed light on the phenonmenon of Castro. It is thoroughly researched and quite lengthy-perhaps too much so however. After completing a masters degree in Latin American studies and pouring over the vast literature on Cuba, I definitely recommend this book but suggest reading others on the topic as well. Cuban studies is such a politicized field and it is remarkably difficult to find academics, pundits, and others writing in this area who aren't completely biased in one way or the other. In addition to this book, I recommend books and articles by Jorge Dominguez, who is probably the most noted scholar writing on Cuba today.
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