A vivid, well-researched history.
A history of the ragtag group of rebels who took down a powerful dictator.
Smithsonian contributing writer Perrottet (The Sinner’s Grand Tour: A Journey Through the Historical Underbelly of Europe, 2011, etc.) recounts the often madcap efforts of a small band of guerrilla soldiers to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. At the forefront of this entertaining tale are two handsome, idealistic men, the Cuban Fidel Castro and the Argentinian Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and one sophisticated, elegant young woman, Celia Sánchez, Castro’s close friend and possible lover. The three, coming from respected, wealthy families, believed fervently in their mission to liberate the island from Batista’s military rule. In 1956, Castro and about 60 supporters gathered in Mexico City to train for rebellion. “Like an urban fitness camp,” writes the author, “they went on long walks up and down the tree-lined avenues,” and some men hiked in nearby mountains “with backpacks filled with stones.” They also devoted hours to studying “military theory.” Despite their determination, their training proved inadequate once they landed in Cuba and established their base in the inhospitable Sierra Maestra range. None of the “soft urban intellectuals” who made up the troop had ever seen the Sierra Maestra before, and they were unprepared for the torrid days and freezing nights, the relentless insects, and the slick, overgrown trails. As they hacked through the countryside with machetes, “every step became a battle.” Nor were they prepared to confront Batista’s army: In one battle, the rebels’ hand grenades—Brazilian army surplus—failed to go off, and a stick of dynamite fizzled. Perrottet smoothly follows the rebels as they gained hundreds of supporters and engaged in bold confrontations. Their successes were reported admiringly in the U.S., where articles portrayed Castro “as a cross between Pancho Villa and James Dean.” Despite his image as “the Robin Hood of Cuba,” however, Castro was a disorganized and moody leader; the guerrillas instead came to rely on Sánchez’s clearsightedness and practicality. By January 1959, against all odds, the rebels swept into Havana, victorious.
A vivid, well-researched history.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1816-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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