Fidel

Criticas

Eschewing the rabid partisanship that tints much writing about Cuba, this balanced portrait draws from a range of sources that span the ideological spectrum. The result is a respectful yet unflinchingly critical warts-and-all depiction of Castro, from his exceptional early childhood (the "My good friend Roosevelt" letter he sent to FDR in 1940 is reproduced here) to the present. Skierka, a German journalist and longtime Latin American correspondent for European news services, is no apologist for the brutal repression practiced by Castro's government or for the lethal interference of the various mobsters, fanatics, and U.S. operatives-Castro's eternal adversaries. Skierka's relatively detached European perspective is salutary, given Cuba's recent embrace of the euro as a sanctioned currency in the face of the economy's entrenched dollarization, and serves as a check on the polarized views of Castro that prevail in the Americas. The author's integration of recently declassified documents from East German and other Eastern bloc sources sheds new light on the missile crisis and Cuba's complex, precarious partnership with the former Soviet Union. Scholars will be well served by this volume's deep bibliography-the text includes nearly 800 citations-but, by failing to include an index, the publisher has diminished the book's utility. Its minimal organization into 10 chapters, one nearly 100 pages long with few subheadings, cries out for easier access. An English translation of the book, written originally in German, is also slated for release. Recommended for academic and public libraries.
—Bruce Jensen, Spanish in Our Libraries (SOL), Hollywood, CA Copyright 2003 Reed BusinessInformation.