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| Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography |  | Authors: Ignacio Ramonet, Fidel Castro
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
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Seller: purpleturtleproducts
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 213,369
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 736
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.8
ISBN: 1416562338
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9781416562337
ASIN: 1416562338
Publication Date: June 9, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| | ISBN13: 9781416562337 | | | Condition: NEW | | | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
Fidel Castro is perhaps the most charismatic and controversial head of state in modern times. A dictatorial pariah to some, he has become a hero and inspiration for many of the world's poor, defiantly charting an independent and revolutionary path for Cuba over nearly half a century.Numerous attempts have been made to get Castro to tell his own story. But only now, in the twilight of his years, has he been prepared to set out the details of his remarkable biography for the world to read. This book is nothing less than his living testament. As he told reporters, his desire to finish checking its text was the one thing that kept him going through his recent illness. He presented a copy of the book in its Spanish edition to his compadre President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. In these pages, Castro narrates a compelling chronicle that spans the harshness of his elementary school teachers; the early failures of the revolution; his intense comradeship with Che Guevara and their astonishing, against-all-odds victory over the dictator Batista; the Cuban perspective on the Bay of Pigs and the ensuing missile crisis; the active role of Cuba in African independence movements (especially its large military involvement in fighting apartheid South Africa in Angola); his relations with prominent public figures such as Boris Yeltsin, Pope John Paul II, and Saddam Hussein; and his dealings with no less than ten successive American presidents, from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Castro talks proudly of increasing life expectancy in Cuba (now longer than in the United States); of the half million students in Cuban universities; and of the training of seventy thousand Cuban doctors nearly half of whom work abroad, assisting the poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He is confronted with a number of thorny issues, including democracy and human rights, discrimination toward homosexuals, and the continuing presence of the death penalty on Cuban statute books. Along the way he shares intimacies about more personal matters: the benevolent strictness of his father, his successful attempt to give up cigars, his love of Ernest Hemingway's novels, and his calculation that by not shaving he saves up to ten working days each year. Drawing on more than one hundred hours of interviews with Ignacio Ramonet, a knowledgeable and trusted interlocutor, this spoken autobiography will stand as the definitive record of an extraordinary life lived in turbulent times.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
 An outstanding first-hand account December 28, 2009
Chris
The book reads as a continuous interview, with the journalist Ramonet posing listed questions and the subsequent answers from Fidel Castro. Breadths of topics are covered, spanning from Fidel's childhood to his plans for a successor. It was interesting to read how Fidel avowed retiring if he became sick, and that his brother would surely succeed him. Many, particularly those anti-Castro, felt Fidel would never release power, staying in office until his death, immediately after which the Revolution would collapse. Instead, Fidel has proven true to his word and brother Raul has taken over as Commandante, and in a rather seamless transition. Of course, the book's co-author, Ramonet, is a friend of Castro leading to a lot of softball questions and he even suggestively adds-on positive points to many of Fidel's answers. Still, Ramonet does provide for an in-depth account, and poses a number of constructive critical questions. The issues of imprisonment of dissidents, the so-called 2003 crack-down, as well as much earlier anti-Cuban Revolution talking points are explored. Why did Cuba support the USSR's suppression of Czechoslovakia, Ramonet wonders, and send homosexuals to labor camps soon after the triumph of the Revolution? Castros' answers often read like that of a lawyer, not unexpected, he having been one. His answers are rarely, if ever, uninformative, though. This is an invaluable source as an account of Castro's life.
 Good History but nothing new or fancy as biography October 10, 2009
Herbert L Calhoun (Falls Church, VA USA)
The introduction is based on a series of questions posed to Castro in interviews that took place over several months. They included among others, questions about the brutality of the revolution and reprisals against Bastista's forces, how he was able to avoid the terrorist route, racial discrimination against Blacks and discrimination against Homosexuals, the expulsion of Cuba's upper classes, etc. Castro's answers were straightforward without equivocation or rationalization. On terrorism, Castro considered it immoral. The revolution was not as bloody has it had been depicted. His revolutionaries, especially Che, who was a medical doctor, gave medical care to Bastista's forces winning many of them over. For the revolution, he said fighting racial discrimination was a sacred principle. Except for excluding them from the military because Cuba was a culture of machismo, there was no discrimination against homosexuals. The upper classes thought he would only last for several months and saw their sojourn to America as a short vacation.
As for his life, Castro was third in a family of seven of modest means. Early on he learned to identify with the causes of those much poorer than himself because of the way they were treated by their upper class employers and by the military -- both of which were at times brutal. These acts of brutality, misuse of authority, gross disparities in wealth all had a lasting impression on him that set the stage for his rebellious nature and political sensibilities. Additionally, from school age to the age of sixteen, Fidel was raised by Haitian godparents, who gave him very little schooling but exposed him to the full range of injustices experienced by the black and poor in Cuba, especially Haitian immigrant sugarcane workers.
Although he had little formal educational training, Fidel had acquired enough basic skills and was good enough an athlete to enter the University, where his keen political sensitivities and sympathies for the poor were put to good effect. In addition to managing a degree in law, he also aligned himself with the political party of a popular radio personality named Edouardo Chibas, and with Chibas' help founded a local underground newspaper, which Bastista's army eventually destroyed. Chibas' notorious activism against corruption and injustice became a model for Fidel, leading him to give up athletics in favor of university politics where he ran for and won the student body Presidency, and became a vociferous voice against injustice at a time when this was a very dangerous thing to do. After a year as a thorn in the side of the Batista government he was forbade to return to school. This ban was Fidel's "come to Jesus" moment for it was here that he decided at the age of 20, to take a stand and fight even if it meant death. A friend gave him a gun and one by one others joined him in a fight for dignity, morality, truth and justice for the weak and poor.
In 1952, after becoming a lawyer as well as a recognized activist, Fidel helped his party "the Orthodox Party," win the election. However, the results were quickly overthrown in a coup d'etat by General Fulgencio Bastista. A year later, after his fellow party leaders decided they would not "rock the boat" and react to the coup, Fidel and his loyalists decided it was time to take matters into their own hands. They carried out their first act of insurrection, when he and about a thousand of his confederates failed in an attempt to take over a local military armory. Fidel was arrested and five of his followers were killed. After the Moncada failure, Fidel fled to the Piedra mountains, where he narrowly escaped death and ended up spending two years in jail before fleeing to Mexico where he met Che Guevara. He two spent two years planning with Che before returning to Cuba, where they eventually overthrew Batista, and the rest is history
A great deal of the middle chapters give a colorful, overly detailed and longer view of the history of the Cuban revolution, which actually more accurately began with the slave revolt of Toussaint L'Ouverture. It was L'Ouverture's revolt that set the stage for revolution throughout the Caribbean and the Americas. Many of the French landowners actually fled Haiti to Cuba in 1791 as a result, raising coffee beans there until two hurricanes caused them to switch to sugar cane, which required increasing numbers of slaves. As the Atlantic slave trade came to an end, Cuba landowners hoped to be incorporated into the U.S. as a Southern state so as to continue slavery. However, uprisings against Spain throughout South America and the American Civil war conspired to undercut these plans. Cuba fought two wars: one against Spain and another against the U.S. The writings of Jose Marti was to figure prominently in the latter. As a result of them, Marti became the spiritual leader and Godfather of the free Cuba Movement and his socialist orientated politics became the inspiration for Fidel's interest in Marxism. From the very beginning of Fidel's political training, he always had in mind wresting Cuba from the yoke of Western imperialist tyranny and that is what he and Che eventually did.
This is a straightforward autobiography, nothing fancy. Its virtue is that it reads much like history and unlike the standard autobiographical fare, although there is an ample amount of self-serving stories and hyped prose. Nevertheless, it is a good, lengthy, though not a great, read. Three stars
Fidel Castro September 12, 2009
Gene A. Brodland
I have not read the book yet but the book arrived in good condition snd on time.
 Parrot a Lie Over and Over and it will Become Truth August 29, 2009
Andrew J. Rodriguez (Golden, Colorado)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Open your eyes, for heaven's sake, and stop calling Castro's unscrupulous betrayal a revolution.
I suggest all you five-star reviewers read a 2007 article published by Forbes magazine in which old Fidel comes out as one of the wealthiest heads of state second to Queen Elizabeth II, with a billion dollars in foreign investments.
Formerly "The Pearl of the Antilles," Cuba's image has plummeted into that of an alligator-shaped island/farm owned and managed by the Castro brothers for their own enrichment. Communism--already an accepted failure--is just their excuse to continue ripping the country off.
And let's get something straight about those he accusses of "imperialism:" The main reason the embargo still persists is not because of US unreasonable demands toward Cuba, or the failure of American presidents to understand the issues at hand. It continues because the last thing the Castro brothers want is to open the eyes of an enslaved people to the outside world, especially to the fruits of capitalism and the American free entreprise system.
Why is the lifting of the US embargo so vital to communists interests when they can do business with the rest of the planet, more so when distance is unimportant and our world is getting smaller?
The answer: It is crucial and very convenient for tyrants to blame a common enemy for their nation's miseries while they continue to pilfer it, and the United States is the perfect escape-goat.
I still can't figure out how I gathered enough nerve to finish reading his so-called "autobiography."
Andrew J. Rodriguez
Award winning author of "Adios, Havana," a Memoir
A book worth your time May 11, 2009
A customer (California USA)
When the book arrived I was eager to begin reading it, but instead I set it aside and I didn't start reading it until I made sure I was going to be able to dedicate the time for it since I am usually a busy person and this books merits a comprehensible amount of time to read.
As an avid reader of the history of the Cuban Revolution, I have been exposed to many different versions of the Cuban Revolution, its politics, economics, social culture, etc. I have also read dozens of books by Fidel Castro (usually collected speeches and interviews) so I knew what to expect from a book like this one.
I am used to reading what Fidel Castro has said in interviews and speeches and to the surprise of no one, Castro is an excellent story-teller, a magnificent speaker, well read and rounded, and he has his convictions and strong personality that goes with it. Those who are interested in reading this book should take Castro seriously. We should not read this book with any preconceived notions or political prejudice against him. These are his words and thought and this is the closest we will come at knowing how he thinks and what he believes.
Ignacio Ramonet, Ph.D., interviewed Castro for over 100 hours so there is plenty of valuable information. The conversation starts off with the life of Castro, so that in itself is a biography--or autobiography since Castro is the one telling it. From this the conversation moves to his early years as a university student radicalized by the political environment of the day. This is continued by his life as a political candidate, his failed attacks to the Moncada Garrison, and his role in the Cuban Revolution. The rest is his role as Prime Minister and then President of Cuba and the Cuban society in general.
This book is worth your time (if you have it) because it will be helpful in having a balanced view of the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro is getting ZERO dollars from this book. He is NOT getting any royalties, therefore it is important to listen to what this leader has to say. There are dozens of books out there by Cuban "exiles" that deserve attention and are worth reading, but unfortunately they are lost or mixed in with the hundreds more of anti-Castro propaganda that is easily mistaken by innocent readers as a piece of fine scholarly or researched work.
Enjoy it!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
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