FIDEL CASTRO August 13, 1926 – November 26, 2016. “A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.” --Fidel Castro From revolutionary and symbol of strength to Cold War adversary, Fidel Castro was one of the world’s most controversial leaders, and perhaps its most enduring. As Cuba’s towering and charismatic president for nearly fifty years, Castro’s influential leadership captivated allies and enemies alike. By virtue of passionate oration and committed sense of purpose—good or bad—Castro kept the Cuban people devoted and the world enthralled. From his earliest years as a student rebel to his role in Cuba's social reform to The Cuban Missile Crisis, his life is covered in extensive detail within this book. The transfer of power to Raul Castro is explored as well as the changes to Cuban/American diplomatic relations, including Obama’s view of America’s relationship with Cuba. Castro’s death is covered as well as the world’s the reaction to it, including the views of American and Cuban people and the differing reactions of Obama and Trump. A comprehensive look into each stage of Castro’s life and leadership More than a dozen color photos spanning the Cuban leader’s life Comes complete with Castro’s most resonating speeches Fidel Castro: In His Own Words is not only a reflection of Castro’s life, triumphs, and misdeeds, but it is a look at the people and places affected by his politics before, during, and after the age of Cuban embargo. Regardless of readers’ political preference, there is no doubt that this captivating leader’s influence on the Cuban people, The United States, and the world will continue to echo through time.
This intimate, revisionist portrait of Fidel Castro, showing how an unlikely young Cuban led his country in revolution and transfixed the world, is “sure to become the standard on Castro’s early life” (Publishers Weekly). 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. Young Castro challenges us to put aside the caricature of a bearded, cigar-munching, anti-American hothead to discover how Castro became the dictator who acted as a thorn in the side of US presidents for nearly half a century. In this “gripping and edifying narrative…Hansen brings imposing research and notable erudition” (Booklist) to Castro’s early life, showing Castro getting his toughness from a father who survived Spain’s class system and colonial wars to become one of the most successful independent plantation owners in Cuba. We see a boy running around that plantation more comfortable playing with the children of his father’s laborers than his own classmates at elite boarding schools in Santiago de Cuba and Havana. We discover a young man who writes flowery love letters from prison and contemplates the meaning of life, a gregarious soul attentive to the needs of strangers but often indifferent to the needs of his own family. These pages show a liberal democrat who admires FDR’s New Deal policies and is skeptical of communism, but is also hostile to American imperialism. They show an audacious militant who stages a reckless attack on a military barracks but is canny about building an army of resisters. In short, Young Castro reveals a complex man. 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. He gained access to hundreds of never-before-seen letters and interviewed people he was the first to ask for their impressions of the man. The result is a nuanced and penetrating portrait of 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.
The story, Reach for the Sky, is on the life of a worker in a home for abandoned dogs, while in Who We Are, What We're Doing, a fighter pilot considers pulling eight G's, "the real thing, the difference between thinking about kissing and kissing."
This book analyzes the current situation existing in Cuba and describes in detail the real disaster caused in every aspect of Cuban life by the so-called revolution of Fidel Castro, including how it has affected the different components of Cuban society. The author gives a detailed summary of the main indicators of the Cuban economy and society before 1959, when Fidel Castro took power, indicating how they compared favorably at that time with other countries of the world, including many which are considered part of the developed world in our days. The book demystifies numerous aspects of Castro ́s propaganda that his followers have considered as great achievements of his government and puts them in perspective in regard to what Cuba could have had nowadays if it had been ruled by democratically elected governments. The book profusely documents the system of corruption and privilege established in the island and analyzes the obscure role of Castro in a number of important events related to the United States—including references to his links with drug trafficking, money laundering, and the promotion of terrorist activities, among other criminal activities. One of the aspects the book describes in more detail is the lack of political freedom and the repression of independent thinking and free expression existing in the island, which is part of the overall control on everybody ́s lives established by Castro, which is implemented by a gigantic machinery of terror and surveillance. The book describes the role of Cuban military and intelligence in numerous important events of world politics during the past five decades, including their role in Africa, Latin America, and other regions of the world, and it includes some questioning about the possible role of Castro in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy It considers Castro ́s interpretation of foreign policy and the way he has disregarded all norms of international behavior. The book also discusses the case of the enormous debt accumulated by Castro ́s government and how many of these resources have been deviated to well-camouflaged foreign accounts and investments by Castro and some of the top people around him. One of the interesting things about this book is the analysis it makes about the situation of youth, women, and blacks within the present Cuban society and the detailed description about how the people in general live and how this has evolved under Castro ́s tyranny. It also includes an analysis of the exiled Cuban community. Andres Solares discusses the real facts behind Castro ́s long tenure of power and shows the contradictions between what he and his supporters say and the crude reality of what happens in Cuba. His book also enters in details about the degrees of decomposition existing at all levels of the political establishment of this obsolete communist regime. The book describes the enormous damage caused by Castro ́s policies to the environment of the island and the state of destruction of all the main networks of services, as well as the stagnant conditions of the economy. It includes the author ́s views on the different possible scenarios for Cuban political future, once Castro and his brother, one way or another, are no longer able to control Cuba. This book is a strong denouncement of the longest dictatorship that has existed in America, and it serves as an eye-opener for all those who ignore the crude reality of what happens in that beautiful country. It is also a moral message of hope for a better future for the Cuban people. Mr. Solares has used his professional and personal experience, together with his direct knowledge of the Cuban society and economy, to give us a very interesting account of the situation in his country, which will serve those who read it to comprehend better what we can expect there.
In CASTRO'S SECRETS, highly acclaimed author and intelligence expert Brian Latell offers a strikingly original view of Fidel Castro in his role as Cuba's supreme spymaster. Based on interviews with high level defectors from Cuba's powerful intelligence and security services, long-buried secrets of Fidel's nearly 50-year reign are exposed for the first time. They include numerous assassinations and attempted ones carried out on Castro's orders, some against foreign leaders. More than a dozen ranking Cuban secret agents embraced by the CIA and FBI speak in these pages; some have never told their stories on the record before. Latell also probes dispassionately into the CIA's most deplorable plots against Cuba - including previously obscure schemes to assassinate Castro - and presents shocking new conclusions about what Fidel actually knew of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
"Mommy, mommy, call him. Tell him to come here right away. I have so many things to tell him!" I had a ton of things to tell him. I wanted him to find a solution to all the shortages of clothes; of meat, so it would again be distributed through the ration books. I also wanted to ask him to give our Christmas back. And to come live with us. I wanted to let him know how much we really needed him... Fidel didn't answer my letter. I kept writing him letters from a sweet and well-behaved child, a brave but sad girl. Letters resembling those of a secret, spurned lover... As a girl growing up in Cuba, Alina Fernandez found nothing abnormal in the fact that Fidel Castro would occasionally visit her house bearing gifts just for her. At the age of ten, her mother finally told her the truth: she was Castro's Daughter.
This is a compelling behind-the-scenes account of the extraordinary Castro brothers and the dynastic succession of Fidel's younger brother Raul. Brian Latell, the CIA analyst who has followed Castro since the sixties, gives an unprecedented view into Fidel and Raul's remarkable relationship, revealing how they have collaborated in policy making, divided responsibilities, and resolved disagreements for more than forty years--a challenge to the notion that Fidel always acts alone. Latell has had more access to the brothers than anyone else in this country, and his briefs to the CIA informed much of U.S. policy. Based on his knowledge of Raul Castro, Latell makes projections on what kind of leader Raul will be and how the shift in power might influence U.S.-Cuban relations.
'Grand job, that last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear from me, with my funny little game. Next time I shall clip the ears off and send them to the police just for jolly.' -Jack the Ripper So ran a note written by the most notorious serial killer of all time. But no matter how awful his crimes, Jack the Ripper was a mere amateur compared to some, as he killed just seven times- • Bonnie and Clyde shot eight victims • Gary Ridgway butchered more than 50 prostitutes • Dr. Marcel Petiot killed 67 times for cash • Pedro Lopez slaughtered some 300 people for sex • Harold Shipman may have finished off even more victims than that. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of a crime will know that all criminals are bad. But there are some evildoers who are in a whole different league. They are the world's worst criminals. This concise book is packed full of more than a hundred of the most extreme. Read it if you dare.
