Young Castro: The Making of a Revolutionary

(Paperback)

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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 Castros early life (Publishers Weekly).

Until now, biographers have treated Castros life like prosecutors, scouring his past for evidence to convict a person they dont like or dont 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 narrativeHansen brings imposing research and notable erudition (Booklist) to Castros early life, showing Castro getting his toughness from a father who survived Spains 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 fathers 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 FDRs 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 Castros 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.

Reviews

A gripping and edifyingnarrativeHansen brings imposing research and notable erudition to this account of Fidel Castro's early life.

* Booklist *
A nuanced portrait of a complex young man Hansen fills out personal details and adds new layers of complexity to a life whose narrative has often been shaped and manipulated to serve the purposes of the Cuban Revolution. * ReVista, the Harvard Review of Latin America *
An engaging, astute character study. A welcome addition to the literature of Castro and Cuba. * Kirkus Reviews *
Sure to become the standard on Castros early life. * Publishers Weekly *

Author Bio

Jonathan M. Hansen is a senior lecturer at Harvard University and the author ofGuantnamo: An American HistoryandThe Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890-1920. His writing has been published inThe New York Times, Huffington Post, andThe Guardian,among other places. His most recent book is Young Castro: The Making of a Revolutionary.