Fidel Castro

Nick Caistor is a former BBC Latin American analyst, and Latin American editor of Index on Censorship magazine. He broadcasts regularly on Latin American literature and art. He is the author of Mexico City: A Cultural and Literary Companion (1999) and Octavio Paz (Reaktion, 2007). He is editor of two anthologies and has translated many novels by Latin American and Spanish authors.

• Preface 1 Down on the Farm 2 Defying the Dictator 3 Making the Revolution 4 Missiles and Marxism 5 Revolution and the State 6 Losing the Plot 7 The Special Period 8 Time's Winged Chariot Conclusion: The Great Survivor References Select Bibliography Acknowledgements Photo Acknowledgements

As former BBC Latin America analyst Nick Caistor writes in this highly readable and refreshingly balanced biography, Fidel Castro is an inimitable and complicated figure who, for better or worse, has forged a place in the pantheon of consequential leaders in the modern era . . . a book that packs an enormous historical and analytical punch, despite being only around 150 pages long. - Survival: Global Politics and StrategyFor those interested in learning more about Cuban history and the man behind the cigar-smoking, bearded icon, Nick Caistors new biography Fidel Castro should be of interest. Its brief, flows smoothly through six decades, and outlines the development of Castros political consciousness and official ideology, from Nationalism to Communism and back again. - Tweeds ReviewHistorys verdict on Castro is yet to come, but Caistor has done a fine job laying out the arguments both for and against his longstanding claims to absolution. A fascinating, highly readable, and extremely well-balanced account - Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life