Young Castro, Jonathan M. Hansen
Young Castro, Jonathan M. Hansen
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Young Castro
The Making of a Revolutionary

Author: Jonathan M. Hansen

Narrator: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Unabridged: 16 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/18/2019


Synopsis

An intimate, revisionist portrait of the early years of Fidel Castro, showing how an unlikely young Cuban led his country in revolution and transfixed the world.

This book will change how you think about Fidel Castro. Until now, biographers have treated Castro's life like prosecutors, scouring his past for evidence to convict a person they don't like or don't understand. This can make for bad history and unsatisfying biography. Young Castro challenges listeners to put aside the caricature of a bearded, cigar-munching, anti-American hot head to discover how Castro became the dictator who acted as a thorn in the side of U.S. presidents for nearly half a century.

The first American historian in a generation to gain access to the Castro archives in Havana, Jonathan Hansen was able to secure cooperation from Castro's family and closest confidants, gaining access to hundreds of never-before-seen letters and interviews. The result is a nuanced and penetrating portrait of a figure who was determined to be a leader—a man at once brilliant, arrogant, bold, vulnerable, and all too human. A man who, having grown up on an island that felt like a colonial cage, was compelled to lead his country to independence.

About Jonathan M. Hansen

Jonathan M. Hansen is a senior lecturer at Harvard University and the author of Guantanamo: An American History and The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890-1920. His writing has been published in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the Guardian, among other places.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Erik

This biography of Castro covers his life up until the success of the Cuban revolution in 1959. Although very sympathetic, author Hansen does not eschew all criticism, noting instances when Castro's own accounts differ from the record. Among the controversies surrounding Castro's story is that of when......more

Goodreads review by Eric

This was excellent but left me wishing it continued post 1959. I just hope there’s a second volume in the works because from what I can tell there isn’t another even handed, fully realized biography of Castro available at the current time. Needless to say Castro’s life post revolution also deserves......more

Goodreads review by Rhuff

Jonathan M. Hansen has done a superb job recreating the early years of Fidel Castro, in an accessible narrative directed at the general reader. Even longtime Castro buffs and academics can find a few fresh tidbits for chewing, although overall there’s no really new ground covered. The book’s importa......more

Goodreads review by Ben

A solid, well-sourced look at Fidel Castro’s life from his birth to the success of the Revolution. Hansen shows Castro as a charismatic idealist whose successes, failures, and oddities were all the results of his experiences as a Latin American under imperial control. No matter how you feel about Ca......more

Goodreads review by Terry

Fascinating. Excellent history.......more