The Real Fidel Castro [Hardcover]

Leycester Coltman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2003

Rhetoric during and after the Cold War years has painted starkly contrasting portraits of Cuba's Fidel Castro: an unblemished idealist on the one hand, a ruthless dictator on the other. This book, an intimate and dispassionate biography of the revolutionary leader, shows that neither assessment is true. Leycester Coltman, British ambassador to Cuba in the early 1990s, came as close to personal friendship with Castro as any foreigner was permitted. With frequent contact and regular conversations, Coltman was in a unique position to observe the dictator's personality in both public and private situations. Here he presents a close-up view of the man who for half a century has been loved, admired, feared, and hated, but seldom really understood. Coltman chronicles the events of the Cuban leader's extraordinary life from the political activism of his university days in Havana to periods of exile, imprisonment, and guerilla warfare alongside Che Guevara, to the uncertainties of his old age. Drawing on personal observation and archival sources in Cuba and abroad, Coltman explores the contradiction between the private character and the public reputation, and highlights the complexities of the consummate actor who continues to play a crucial role on the international stage.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Who is the real Fidel Castro? Some would characterize the longtime Cuban ruler as a ruthless dictator, crushing all opposition and starving his own people to feed his own hunger for power. Others point to a revolutionary leader who has adhered to Marxist-Leninist principles while being popular enough at home to outlast nine American presidents. Former British Ambassador to Cuba Leycester Coltman provides an exhaustively researched history of Castro and reveals a man constantly driven by passion, usually able to lead by force of personality, and possessed of a subtle ability to shift his politics in order to maintain an advantage. The Real Fidel Castro traces his middle-class upbringing and career as a student agitator who swiftly gained notice both positive and negative for taking part in revolutionary politics throughout Latin America. Later, Castro, having failed in initial attempts to overthrow General Fulgencio Batista, takes to the jungle along with Che Guevara to prepare for what would eventually be a successful coup. Once in power, however, the revolutionary must learn to be a diplomat and a political strategist as he navigates a messy victory in the Bay of Pigs conflict and suffers an embarrassing defeat in the Cuban missile crisis. While he is often characterized as having been a mere puppet of the old Soviet Union, Coltman's portrayal indicates the relationship was much more complicated; Castro recognized the need for a strong ally who also opposed the United States but questioned the ideology of the Soviets and worried over what the proposed reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev would bring to the world's largest Communist nation. Although Coltman came to know Castro while serving in Havana, he doesn't gloss over the swift executions given to those who defied "the revolution" or Castro's penchant for imprisoning those thought to be politically dangerous. In the end, Coltman, who died shortly before this book's publication, is nonjudgmental and shows Fidel Castro to be a man as complex as the world he lived in. --John Moe

From Booklist

In a remarkably evenhanded and illuminating biography, Coltman (former British ambassador to Cuba) reveals how Fidel Castro repeatedly has frustrated his foes: surviving defeat, exile, and imprisonment to bring down Batista in the early 1950s; misleading American politicians long enough to secure absolute power over his island nation; forging an advantageous alliance with the Kremlin; and preserving his regime in a post-Cold War world dominated by Cuba's powerful capitalist neighbor. Long personal conversations enable Coltman to penetrate a psyche still opaque to most scholars. It will chafe Castro's detractors that Coltman discerns in that psyche rare courage and resourcefulness. But it will vex Castro's admirers that Colman exposes deep political inconsistencies (an early opponent to Soviet imperialism, Castro metamorphosed into a slavish Soviet supporter) and personal callousness (marriage never restrained the revolutionary libido). Detractors and devotees alike will marvel at how the young prisoner who resorted to invisible ink to inscribe History Will Absolve Me has aged into an old man in a historical riptide that he can already feel pulling him into oblivion. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1st edition (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300101880
• ISBN-13: 978-0300101881
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,597,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing! a well balanced account of the life of Castro., March 22, 2006

By 

The Historian "History is my business." (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Real Fidel Castro (Paperback)

This book is a good, broad introduction to the life of Fidel Castro for a reader who does not want to get bogged down in ideological theories or put up with personal attacks on the man and l believe l am much the wiser reading this book.

There is a lot of nonsense written about Fidel Castro by the so called pro and anti Castro forces and this book does not fall into that trap. Coltman has produced an interesting, well balanced book about Castro which is full of sufficient detail and ideas to paint a fair portrait of the man.

Castro is a powerful, dominant man who insists he must always be right and usually gets his way and this fact was evident from his early childhood. He is a brilliant orator with a keenly developed sense of social justice as many incidents this book indicate. His achievement of free and accessible medical care and education for all Cubans is documented in this book.

Coltman does not hide that Castro is a dictator with little regard for free and open elections. He details Castro's use of Cuban troops in fighting civil wars in other countries.

Coltman makes insufficient mention however of the Cuban secret police and the crushing of internal dissent and he could have clarified and expanded on the role of his ruthless brother Raul Castro who has been central in this internal suppression.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Balanced Look at The Supreme Rebel, December 17, 2003

By 

Corey W. Sabourin (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Real Fidel Castro (Hardcover)

Coltman has written a fun, water-color biography on Fidel Castro. Yes, there is a chronology of historical events that shaped the leader: his failed attack on the Moncada barracks, the U.S.-Soviet missle crisis, Cuban military assistance to Nicaragua and Angola, economic woes, and the Elian Gonzalez soap opera. But the good stuff is the gossipy diplo-circle comments, such as Fidel's response to a reporter's question about his eldest son Fidelito's "resignation" as head of Cuba's nuclear power program. "He didn't resign," Castro tells the journalist. "He was fired for incompetence! This isn't a monarchy." Castro haters get red-faced whenever anyone praises the man's candor, intelligence or humor, things that detract, in their minds, from the ruthless evil dictator he is supposed to be (read the much-praised "Waiting for Snow in Havana"). Coltman doesn't ignore any of the many charges leveled against Castro's strongman style of governing. Many sections of the book are built on episodes that brought Castro severe criticism. Thoughout this biography, however, we are shown the fiercely proud patriot -- proud of Cuba, proud of its campaign of revolution since its war of independence from Spain -- showing us Castro's point of view: why a firing squad is just punishment for a turncoat Army general, why dissidents receiving money from U.S. agencies that have ceaselessly fought his government are contemptible, why 'bourgeois elections' that never brought real democracy to Cuba -- and with a poor record throughout Latin America -- are a hollow promise. Coltman neither vilifies nor glorifies Fidel Castro. For many on both sides, this is unpardonable. For the other 99.9 percent of us, it's a true gift.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Real Review, December 20, 2005

By 

Hannah Marie (Grand Rapids, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Real Fidel Castro (Paperback)

Several of the reviewers before me have been critical of this biography written by Leycester Coltman, yet I doubt if Fidel Castro himself wrote an autobiography we would gain any more information. This book portrays an honest outlook, without the propaganda or blatant dislike that usually goes along with mention of the infamous dictator. It is obvious to anyone who reads this (and nobody who has can deny the fact) that Mr. Coltman is incredibly thorough in his research, going to great pains to explain events. This is especially helpful to me, as a high school student, who hadn't much prior knowledge of Cuba and famous events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those critical of his work confound me, especially a reviewer who wrote a review ON the reviewers. I wonder how this is possible, even plausible, as they admitted to not having read the book themselves. "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes"- well Leycester Coltman has certainly provided the pathway to doing so.