The Real Fidel Castro

by Leycester Coltman

Book Overview

Rhetoric during and after the Cold War years has painted starkly contrasting portraits of Cuba's Fidel Castro: an unblemished idealist on the one hand, a ruthless dictator on the other. This book, an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300101880
• ISBN13: 9780300101881
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.7" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

like new

Book in excellent condition. My daughter needs the book for her summer reading. Couldn't believe the great price I got it at. Was received promptly.

Search for truth

It is hard, writing the biography of one such individual as Fidel castro is. Wheter one likes it or not Fidel Castro is living history, and when dealing with history one has to be extremly careful not to stray too much from path that was laid before him. Can there exist something what scould be called "true biography"? After all, if entire history is based upon the facts, doesn't that mean that many facts can form an unique and, most important of all, truthfull image of person or event? Indeed it would be so, if it weren't for tiny miscalculation in that plan. And that miscalculation is called - interpretation. Who is Fidel Castro? Craving lunatic, dictator like Saddam, who kills his people for pure enjoyment in killing and destrucion? One of the last in line of romantical revolutionaires (if that expresseion can exist in reality at all) who would give life fot the thing the he believes is true? Is he a figure that fights the battle against globalisation and American imperialism or he is just old communist who was overrun by time, but still refuses to submit himself to murky shadows of time that has been. Leycester Coltman, late diplomat on Cuba, tried to answer these questions. Did he succeed, it is hard to say. Starting his portrait from boyhood age, Coltman progresses towards the rise of guerilla leader, guerilla warfare in the mountains, numerous confrontations wit US, hopes and frustrations with SSSR, building his 'not-so-fictional-character' from scratches, presenting him as saviour of some kind (little exaggaration here) towards describing him as strayed from the "true" path and becoming "civic politician". There are passages in which Coltman openly presents his admiration towards Fidel, and there are those where he swungs at him with all the might of british sarcasm, and sardonic humor. By doing this Coltman doesn't forget his main role, being a biographer, not gossip-maker. In the vast sea of biographies and "critical overviews" of Fidel Castro Coltmans biographiy reads itself easily, though not being able to resist urge for comments, still it keeps itself on decent distance allowing the reader to form his own oppinion by consulting the facts that are presented in the book. For all od you out there who are interested into political history of twentieth century this should be very inspiring book, one you should definitely read as a starting point for any further researches

Amazing! a well balanced account of the life of Castro.

This book is a good, broad introduction to the life of Fidel Castro for a reader who does not want to get bogged down in ideological theories or put up with personal attacks on the man and l believe l am much the wiser reading this book. There is a lot of nonsense written about Fidel Castro by the so called pro and anti Castro forces and this book does not fall into that trap. Coltman has produced an interesting, well balanced book about Castro which is full of sufficient detail and ideas to paint a fair portrait of the man. Castro is a powerful, dominant man who insists he must always be right and usually gets his way and this fact was evident from his early childhood. He is a brilliant orator with a keenly developed sense of social justice as many incidents this book indicate. His achievement of free and accessible medical care and education for all Cubans is documented in this book. Coltman does not hide that Castro is a dictator with little regard for free and open elections. He details Castro's use of Cuban troops in fighting civil wars in other countries. Coltman makes insufficient mention however of the Cuban secret police and the crushing of internal dissent and he could have clarified and expanded on the role of his ruthless brother Raul Castro who has been central in this internal suppression.

The Real Review

Several of the reviewers before me have been critical of this biography written by Leycester Coltman, yet I doubt if Fidel Castro himself wrote an autobiography we would gain any more information. This book portrays an honest outlook, without the propaganda or blatant dislike that usually goes along with mention of the infamous dictator. It is obvious to anyone who reads this (and nobody who has can deny the fact) that Mr. Coltman is incredibly thorough in his research, going to great pains to explain events. This is especially helpful to me, as a high school student, who hadn't much prior knowledge of Cuba and famous events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those critical of his work confound me, especially a reviewer who wrote a review ON the reviewers. I wonder how this is possible, even plausible, as they admitted to not having read the book themselves. "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes"- well Leycester Coltman has certainly provided the pathway to doing so.

A substantial and objective view of a Latin American Legen..

Written by an appointee of Margaret Thatcher, this book is an outstanding and objective view of a man, like it or not, who will go down in history with the same reverence as is accorded to Simon Bolivar.Coming from a decisively Thatcherite background, the author's commentary is neither distorted by the hysterical whiners in Miami nor is it merely pinko propaganda. Coltman devotes a chapter to each major phase of Castro's life, from his studies in Jesuit schools, to Congressional candidate, to revolutionary, to nuts and bolts senior statesman.For those wondering how it was possible for just one lawyer like Fidel to go from possessing just 12 rifles after his men had been massacred after a catastrophic landing of his rebel ship Granma to a decisive victory over an army of tens of thousands, this book is for you.For those of you wondering how it is possible for a country to increase its literacy rate in just one year from 66% to 97%, this book is for you. For those of you wondering how it is possible for a nation subjected to the most extreme blockade in human history, for forty years, to have an infant mortality rate 15% lower than that of the United States, this book is for you. (One clue: in Cuba, if an expectant mother misses a prenatal doctor appointment THE NEXT DAY her obstetrician visits her personally at home. Why can't we do this in the USA rather than gold-plating all of our nuclear weapons because they explode more evenly?)If you wonder how it is possible for a nation subjected to an embargo more extreme than the embargo recently imposed upon Iraq to have zero homeless people (compared for example to 50,000 homeless veterans sleeping in squalor on USA streets every night, many of them highly decorated), this book is for you. As they say in Cuba, "Every night, 30 million children sleep on the street. Many of them live in the USA. None of them live in Cuba."If you want an inside, balanced examination of how this is all possible, written by an appointee of the free-market heroine Margaret Thatcher, read this book... I go to the island twice yearly on licensed visits, fully authorized, and am thoroughly familiar with what is actually happening there.Matthew