biography Archives - Not Even Past

The Weak and the Powerful: Omar Torrijos, Panama, and the Non-Aligned Movement in the World (IHS Book Talk)

Dr. Jonathan Brown, emeritus professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, followed an unconventional path to academia. Following a master’s degree in history at the University of Arizona, he received a commission in the Army R.O.T.C. program. Brown served as a lieutenant in the Panama Canal Zone from 1968 to 1970. Later promoted to captain, he completed his final tour of duty in Thailand in 1971 before enrolling in the history doctoral program at UT-Austin. His first book, A Socioeconomic History of Argentina (1979), won the Bolton Prize for the best book in English on Latin American history. Over his career, Brown has published six books. Spanning centuries and continents, his scholarship explores labor, nationalism, and revolution among other themes

In October 2024, the Institute for Historical Studies hosted a book talk for Dr. Brown’s latest publication, The Weak and the Powerful: Omar Torrijos, Panama, and the Nonaligned Movement in the World. This most recent work reflects the contours of his career—both within and outside academia. His initial exposure to Panama and General Torrijos began when he was stationed in the Southern Command from 1968 to 1970. However, Dr. Brown would not undertake a study of the canal until nearly five decades later. The impetus was another project. His 2017 book, Cuba’s Revolutionary World, traced the Cuban Revolution’s influence on hemispheric affairs and ultimately renewed his interest in the Canal Zone. Where Cuba’s Revolutionary World de-centers the United States and focuses on Cuban foreign policy, The Weak and the Powerful positions Panama as a critical yet understudied player in regional politics.

Book cover of The Weak and the Powerful: Omar Torrijos, Panama, and the Non-Aligned Movement in the World

The Weak and the Powerful opens with a provocative question: “How does a small country, without resort to war, convince a great power to give back valuable real estate?” This framing shifts the focus away from traditional spheres of influence in Cold War studies. During his talk, Brown shared that he aimed to write about imperialism while focusing on its victims. The Weak and the Powerful largely succeeds in centering Panama, although this history filters through the biography of the nation’s strongman. The United States and its political leaders remain on the periphery of this transnational study. Instead, the book devotes considerable attention to Panama’s relations with the Global South and members of the Non-Aligned Movement. General Torrijos proactively engaged these countries to build solidarity and to unite many “weak” powers against the United States. “He made it difficult for American diplomats to engage with international organizations without living up to their own democratic principles,” concludes Brown.

Picture of Omar Torrijos photographed in the countryside with Panamanian farmers — *Omar Torrijos with Panamanian farmers. Source: Wikimedia Commons*

Omar Torrijos, who took power through a military coup in 1968, successfully negotiated an end to nearly a century of U.S. occupation of the Canal Zone. Remarkably, he did so not through force but through negotiation. For this accomplishment, Brown argues that “the Panamanian strongman deserves a study of international dimensions” (7). Thus, The Weak and the Powerful devotes considerable attention to Torrijos’ biography. The author traces the dictator’s rise through the Panamanian National Guard, which offered economic and social mobility to many Panamanians. Perhaps surprising to many readers, military service also provided Torrijos with “a greater sense of social inequities in the mountains, plains, and jungles of the nation” (24). The dictator came to see himself as a progressive, championing issues of social justice and offering a reformist domestic agenda.

Black and white picture of General Omar Torrijos and with President Carter. — *General Omar Torrijos with President Carter [Panama Treaty]. Source: Library of Congress*

Inclusionary policies and social reforms allowed Torrijos to cultivate popular support and to consolidate his power. Brown also maintains that the Torrijos regime made scant use of repression in contrast to other Latin American dictatorships of the era. Ultimately, this leadership style allowed Torrijos to hold power as long as it took to sign the Panama Canal Accords. Illuminating this history, The Weak and the Powerful offers a compelling reexamination of Panama’s role in hemispheric politics. The book highlights Torrijos’ strategic use of international alliances to pressure the United States into granting historic concessions. This achievement came at a time of significant U.S. intervention in Latin America—an irony that reinforces Brown’s larger argument that “no model of international relations can explain [Torrijos’] accomplishments” (269). Ultimately, Dr. Brown’s return to the Panama Canal offers a fresh perspective on treaty negotiations and enriches existing Cold War historiography.

Gabrielle Esparza is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American history, with a focus on twentieth-century Argentina. Her dissertation examines the evolution of President Raúl Alfonsín’s human rights policies from his candidacy to his presidency in post-dictatorship Argentina. At the University of Texas at Austin, Gabrielle has served as a graduate research assistant at the Texas State Historical Association and as co-coordinator of the Symposium on Gender, History, and Sexuality in 2020-2021. Gabrielle was also Associate Editor and Communications Director of Not Even Past from 2021-2022. Currently, Gabrielle works as a graduate research assistant in the Institute for Historical Studies and as an Editorial Assistant for The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Review of Stalin as Warlord, by Alfred J. Rieber (2022)

Banner for Review of Review of Stalin as Warlord

At the age of 91, the prolific historian of Soviet history Alfred J. Rieber published a monograph on Josef Stalin. Covering the period from the 1920s to the post-war period after 1945, Stalin as Warlord adopts a historical and, at times, materialist perspective. It focuses in particular on the “paradoxes” of the supreme leader, the tensions between creative and destructive impulses that together, as the author argues, played a critical role in forging the complex outcome of Soviet war performance. Leaving aside common speculations about Stalin’s paranoid mentality, Rieber explains Stalin’s decisions in significant historical and theoretical contexts and interactions with his subordinates, thereby taking a firm stand in academic debates and condensing serious political lessons beyond myths of the dictator.

According to Rieber, the fundamental step in understanding Stalin was acknowledging his persistent fear of war, which the leader expected to take place between the Soviet Union and imperialist nations, demanding the industrialization and ideological unification of the entire country. This anxiety was rooted in his experience of foreign interventions in the civil war, threats of war with Western powers in the late 1920s, and the rising fascism in Europe. And it manifested itself in rapid collectivization and industrialization, as well as the initiation of the Great Terror. Some of these campaigns produced tragic results that many party members struggled to tolerate. Nonetheless, the author reminds us of the great collective drive behind them. In his view, Stalin was the representative of the Bolsheviks in the sense that his actions mirrored the historical challenge faced by revolutionaries: leading a massive, sometimes resistant, agricultural population through a time of general international hostility.

Picture of Nikolai Yezhov with Stalin and Molotov along the Volga–Don Canal — *Nikolai Yezhov with Stalin and Molotov along the Volga–Don Canal, orignal. Source: Wikimedia Commons*

For Rieber, another critical aspect of Stalin was his selective, mostly pragmatic, yet non-negligible subscription to Marxism-Leninism. While conventional discussions have explored his non-Marxist antisemitism, Russo-centrism, and investment in crafting a tamed privileged bureaucracy, rarely have scholars touched the egalitarian aspects of his policies. The book reveals that Stalin built a creative tension between Russian and other nationalities—one that involved not only the promotion of Russian culture but also the limited tolerance and even inclusion of indigenization. Further, during the Great Terror of 1936-1938, amidst the massive arrests and executions of managers and specialists, people of peasant or worker origins gained promotions, indeed constituting – to some degree – a class revolution from above.[1]

Stalin, in Rieber’s eyes, was, after all, characterized by “paradoxes.” Although the author clearly favors such a term over “contradictions,” the term is intriguing yet elusive. An example of this is the author’s formulation of Stalin’s “rational and irrational” impulses. While the author has accounted for the material, historical, and theoretical context that de facto justified Stalin’s decision, his final abstraction of “paradoxes” circles back somehow confusingly to a non-materialist conclusion on irrationality.[2] For critical readers, this is a problematic and self-contradictory tieback.

*Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill on portico of Russian Embassy in Teheran, during conference–Nov. 28 – Dec. 1, 1943. Source: Library of Congress*

Moving away from Rieber’s “paradoxes” to materialist “contradictions” better emphasizes the historical and dialectical lesson of Stalin as a Warlord: that hasty, arbitrary actions in both scope and method can produce unexpected oppositions. In Stalin’s case, such a pattern of action can be observed in the destruction of the communist leadership in different republics and the Comintern during the Great Terror. These actions ultimately undermined Soviet foreign support of anti-fascism campaigns or gave ground to extreme nationalists who would collaborate with Nazi forces. Perhaps echoing this observation, during 1956-1957, as they offered an alternative theoretical assessment of Stalin following Khrushchev’s 1956 report, Chinese leaders criticized the deceased leader for confusing two distinct types of contradictions: those between “the enemy and us” and those arising “within the people.” A revised thesis of Stalin as Warlord thus emerges: While Stalin’s decisions may have been justified by the historical and theoretical contradictions he faced, his frequent arbitrariness in decision-making generated opposition that undermined his agenda—an outcome which, at first glance, appears “paradoxical.” By addressing this overshadowed pillar of Rieber’s explanation, I believe readers can comprehend the duality in Stalin’s decision-making: ambitious planning existed alongside improvisation to counter unforeseen challenges of his own making—a hallmark of Stalinist governance.

In sum, Stalin as Warlord is a book that deserves close reading. Its importance lies in the enormous amount of detail that the author assembles to provide a striking but meticulous analysis of Stalin. Far from a dictator without constraint, he was caught between numerous challenges surrounding the Soviet system and the pitfalls created by his actions. But to fully comprehend this history, I suggest one additional: using “contradictions” instead of the author’s elusive notion of “paradoxes.”

Shutong Wang (王庶同) was born and raised in China. He earned a B.A. in History at McGill University and is currently a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin. He studies the social movements of the 1950s, with a particular focus on the interactions between grassroots communities in Modern and Contemporary China.

[1] Further in this direction, Rieber points out his ignorance of technocrats and a preference for practice over theory.

[2] This is not to say irrationality did not exist but to question the legitimacy of using such a term here.

King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop by Harvard Sitkoff (2009)

by Tiana Wilson

As we approach the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the 50^th anniversary of his death, April 4, 1968, it is crucial to appreciate King entirely. Beyond his push for nonviolent direct action and racial integration, we should recognize his expansive human rights activism, anti-war advocacy, and ground-breaking thinking.

Harvard Sitkoff’s biography of King shows him as a heroic but flawed leader and emphasizes his radicalism rather than his pacifism. Sitkoff does not shy away from King’s shortcomings. He brings attention to King’s adultery and highlights the criticism he faced from others within the movement. His portrait of King shows him to be a man who made mistakes, feared death, belittled women, gambled, partied, and often compromised. However, it was also clear that King was intelligent, strategic, pious, courageous, radical, well spoken, passionate, and loving at heart. Sitkoff argues that King’s view of the civil rights movement shifted. At the beginning of the movement, the goal was to end Jim Crow and obtain voting rights. However, after King’s experience in the urban north, he knew that the civil rights movement needed to expand to include economic and job security as well as housing reform. By the end of King’s life he was a firm advocate of anti-colonialism and opponent of war and he took a global perspective: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. after meeting with President Johnson to discuss civil rights, at the White House, 1963. Source: Warren K. Leffler, Library of Congress

Stikoff’s book is organized around the key events that shaped King’s leadership. The most compelling argument Stikoff makes is that King was an activist first and then a preacher. He argues that King resisted becoming a pastor and only decided to go into ministry because he knew that it was the best strategic method to get his political agenda across. However, I do think that King was deeply spiritual and used religion to strengthen himself as he became the symbol of the movement and a target of its opponents. King also knew that the south was deeply religious and biblical references would appeal to his supporters. On the other hand, using the black church as the center point for the movement worked in the south but was unsuccessful in the north. De facto segregation complicated urban issues in Chicago and New York, where nonviolent direct action was not as effective as it had been in the south. Shadowing King’s life as the leader of the civil rights movement was was the infamous harassment of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI’s strict surveillance of King was made prevalent throughout the book, which shows how the system that was supposed to protect King was actually out to destroy him.

Reexamining the legacy and life of Martin Luther King gives us insight into the ways that social movements can be used to make radical changes in the United States and the ways those changes can make their leaders into targets.

Angela Merkel: Europe’s Most Influential Leader (2016) by Matthew Qvortrup

by Augusta Dell’Omo

With a sly smile, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, lets his black Labrador Koni off the leash and it immediately begins to approach German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. Merkel, who was bitten by a dog in 1995, attempts to hide her visible discomfort, lips pursed and legs tightly crossed. Putin, well aware of the effect he created in the German Chancellor, appears smug and amused. The first Putin-Merkel visit in 2006 got off to a rough start. As one of many revealing anecdotes in Angela Merkel: Europe’s Most Influential Leader, political scientist and professor Matthew Qvortrup seeks to introduce an American audience to the woman fondly known in Germany as “Mutti.” Qvortrup’s work remains one of the few English language biographies of “the new leader of the free world.” Serving as the Chancellor of Germany since 2005, Merkel represents the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the major center-left party in Germany. On September 24, 2017, Merkel won a remarkable fourth term in office, heading off a nationalist surge to maintain control of the German Bundestag, the legislative body at the federal level in Germany. Merkel’s success begs the question: how did a woman, born in relative obscurity in East Germany to a Lutheran pastor rise to become the protégée of Helmut Kohl and arguably the most powerful woman in Europe? Qvortrup, relying on original sources and archives never made available in English, in combination with his powerful storytelling abilities, creates a compelling narrative of Merkel’s rise.
The first half of Angela Merkel details both the solidification of Merkel’s power in the CDU, but also the solidification of Merkel’s “brand.” As she herself would admit, Merkel relies far more on substance and consistency than flashy speeches and charm. Political pundits in Germany and abroad often criticize Merkel as “boring.” She prefers to exude calm, rationality, prudence, and unflappability. For much of her early life, says Qvortrup, Merkel “was not consumed by a passion for dissent,” instead nurturing a deep love of the sciences, eventually achieving a doctorate in quantum chemistry. Qvortrup attributes Merkel’s political awakening to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the process of German reunification. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Merkel became involved in the new democracy movement through the Demokratischer Aufbruch (DA), which would eventually merge with the East German CDU. Merkel rapidly rose through the ranks, eventually receiving an appointment by Kohl himself as federal Minister for Women and Young People. Merkel’s early years coming up in the ranks of the CDU solidified in her mind the important of grassroots organization, effective team members, and loyalty to the party hierarchy. While Merkel discovered her commitment and passion on issues of capitalist oriented economic development and reunification, Merkel also revealed a political pragmatism many of her colleagues did not initially suspect. According to Qvortrup, Merkel proved perfectly willing to let other members of the party fail if it advanced her own progress. Early on in her career in November 1991, Merkel declined requests to speak out in favor of the Prime Minister of the German Democratic Republic (DDR), Lothar de Maizière, after calculating that his fall opened the door for her career advancement.

Angela Merkel at a Christian Democratic Union (CDU) campaign event in 2013 (via Wikimedia Commons)

The second half of Qvortrup’s work really picks up speed as Merkel, after consolidating power in the CDU, gains control of the chancellorship. Here, Qvortrup launches into the crux of his argument: Merkel’s success, he believes, rests in her unique ability to recognize others’ perceptions of her, and then either reinforce or upend them as needed. This, in combination with her pragmatism, willingness to compromise on the international stage, and promotion of modernization and globalization at home, made Merkel not only popular, but effective. Her sole guiding principle, it seems, is the preservation of European unity with Germany’s preeminent position in it. In Qvortrup’s calculations, Merkel’s handling of almost every major political crisis, from the Eurozone crisis to Russian aggression in Ukraine, reflected her ability to calmly and rationally assess the situation. Her interactions with Putin are perhaps the most famous and powerful example of her rationality. According to Qvortrup, Merkel manipulated Putin’s expectations of her as a matronly, unassuming woman in order to drive concessions out of him, and put herself in his situation. As an East German, Merkel possessed a unique ability to recognize the Russian geopolitical uncertainty. Furthermore, Qvortrup hints at the clear gender politics of much of Merkel’s reign: she not only remains above the fray in the masculine political games of Europe’s male leaders, but she also manipulates their expectations of her.

Merkel arrives at the Supporting Syria and the Region conference, London, 2016 (via Flickr)

Qvortrup ends with his most interesting discovery of all: Merkel’s support for refugees represents a stark departure from her usual approach to politics. Merkel, traditionally governed almost entirely by pragmatism and a commitment to a united Europe, finally “discovered an issue that was more important than her own career.” Here, Qvortrup comes full circle to the young girl who grew up in a divided nation, finally finding an issue on which she is willing to expend her political capital and stake her own reputation. Angela Merkel offers an insightful, enjoyable read to those seeking to understand the woman Qvortrup describes as part Mother Courage, part Machiavelli.

Also by Augusta Dell’Omo on Not Even Past:

History Calling: LBJ and Thurgood Marshall on the Telephone
Review of Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman (2007)

by Rachel Ozanne

In the past ten years, Americans have shown a sustained interest in cultural depictions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), or the Mormon Church. South Park’s 2003 episode “All about Mormons” and the 2011 musical The Book of Mormon satirized the founding of the LDS church. Other television shows, however, like HBO’s Big Love and TLC’s Sister Wives have tried to portray other non-LDS strands of Mormonism in a more complex way by exploring modern day polygamy. Now with Mitt Romney’s nomination for the Republican Party candidate for President, the Mormon faith once again finds itself in the spotlight.

With all the drama of television, or quite frankly a presidential campaign, the historical origins of Mormonism can get lost in the shuffle. Despite all the media coverage, a religion that some scholars have deemed the quintessential American religion remains largely misunderstood by the American public. For those interested in learning more, however, about many of the fundamental doctrines and the beginnings of the Mormon (and particularly LDS) Church, I recommend Richard L. Bushman’s recent biography of Mormonism’s founder Joseph Smith, Jr., Rough Stone Rolling.

In Rough Stone Rolling, Bushman brings his extensive knowledge of early Mormon history to expand upon his first book about the life of Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, by tracing the entirety of Smith’s life from the cradle to the grave with a special emphasis on the cultural context out of which he came. Bushman himself is a member of the LDS Church, but his pro-Mormon bias does not prevent him from presenting Smith as a flawed human being, noting that Smith never set himself up as a perfect moral exemplar, but rather a “rough stone rolling”—one that would be smoothed over in time.

“The angel Moroni delivering the plates of the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith jun.” 1886 print (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Bushman’s approach to writing a biography of Joseph Smith almost necessarily focuses heavily on Smith’s spiritual development and how it went hand in hand with the development of Mormonism. Thus, the narrative of the book is punctuated by major events of Smith’s spiritual life, well known to followers of Joseph Smith: his first contact with the Angel Moroni; his discovery of the golden plates on which the Book of Mormon was written; the transcription of those plates into an English text; the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood and the priesthood of Melchizedek in 1829; the founding of the church in 1830; and various revelations that instituted new doctrine or prompted the growing Mormon church to move from New York to Ohio and eventually to Illinois, where Smith was killed.

However, Bushman also spends much time providing the cultural and political context of Smith’s life. In so doing, he implicitly engages with a number of debates about Mormon history. For instance, did Joseph Smith invent the Book of Mormon or was he truly divinely inspired? Was he a power hungry man who had “convenient” revelations resting the sole power of revelation for the LDS church in him or did he really hear commands from God?

1830 copy of The Book of Mormon (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Bushman’s treatment of polygamy is particularly engaging, given that mainstream Mormonism (the LDS Church) officially gave up polygamy in 1890. Even though Bushman doesn’t support polygamy himself, he tries to explain why “plural marriage” (the Mormon term for polygamy) made sense in the context of Joseph Smith’s theology. In particular, Bushman claims that Smith emphasized the importance of family, so he created, or was inspired to create, rituals to ensure that marriage and family lasted for eternity—marriage sealing and baptism for the dead, for instance. In this light, taking on multiple wives was considered another way to extend the family and preserve as many people together in the afterlife as possible.

1853 Harpers Magazine engraving of Smith being tarred and feathered (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Perhaps it is unsurprising that he takes a sympathetic view of polygamy, because he views Smith sympathetically throughout the book. Skeptics may find his matter-of-fact dealings with angels and revelations a bit hard to swallow, and strong opponents of polygamy will not likely be satisfied with Bushman’s assessment that plural marriage was mostly a loving institution at its beginning. It is important to remember, however, that Smith was not the only antebellum American experimenting with different kinds of marriage or claiming to receive messages directly from God. He was in good company with the Oneida Community, Ellen G. White and the Seventh-day Adventists, and many other 19^th-century religious groups.

The Book of Mormon Broadway musical, New York City, 2011 (Image courtesy of Brechtbug/Flickr Creative Commons)

As a biography of Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling only tracks the development of the Church of Latter-day Saints up to Smith’s death in 1844 at the hands of some angry Illinois citizens. Readers interested in the rest of the story will have to pick up other books to learn about schisms in the early church; the trek westward of the followers of Brigham Young; the contest between Mormons and the U.S. government over the legality of polygamy; and the history of race and Mormonism. Nevertheless, Bushman’s history provides great insight for a reader trying to understand the appeal of Joseph Smith and the Mormon faith from the outside.

Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope by Judith M. Brown (1989)

by Dharitri Bhattacharjee

Judith Brown’s Gandhi, Prisoner Of Hope published in 1989 amply reflects the decades of quality research that went into its production. Brown elucidates Gandhi’s transition from being “a man of his time” to “a man for all times and all places” by his unswerving and whole-hearted submission to the idea of satyagraha or truth-force, most significantly reflected in the deep questions that he asked, many of which he himself did not find answers to. Brown’s biography breaks many a myth about Gandhi and encourages readers to evaluate his life and achievements for themselves, as they find access to Gandhi’s own voice, that of his contemporary’s opinions on him and even the attitudes of the Raj’s officials towards Gandhi.

The title renders to the readers two aspects of Gandhi’s life. First, the book describes Gandhi’s career from being a “nonentity” in England to symbolizing Indian identity to the world; from being an unsure leader in South Africa in his early middle age to becoming the central public figure in India in his old age. The book carefully constructs the image of Gandhi, juxtaposing it against the popular image of him as Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” a title by which he began to be called much before any of his ideas were accepted or executed on a large scale. Brown tries to project the man behind the mahatma, with his failings, doubts, mood swings and blood pressure problems. Second, Brown projects the ideological and philosophical mind of Gandhi, tracking carefully the origins of his ideas, be it satyagraha, non-violence, civil-disobedience or his stand against westernization and modernization; their development, their timely execution and their fall out. In this process Brown sets the groundwork on which she is able to explain how time and again, almost ironically, Gandhi falls in his own esteem in trying to execute his ideas, yet tries again, and how in doing so with uncompromising optimism, Gandhi became a “prisoner of hope.”

Brown does not praise Gandhi uncritically nor does she place him on a pedestal, above human beings and closer to the God that Gandhi so relied on. The beauty of her work lies in the way she discovers the mahatma in Gandhi, almost at the end of the book. In the epilogue Brown’s thesis comes to a full circle and she shows how Gandhi’s greatness, his well deserved praise, lay in being a flawed man but being courageous enough to correct those flaws. Gandhi, a frail man by stature, emerges in Brown’s works one of the strongest men in history. “God centered and man oriented,” Gandhi searched for “[H]im in humanity” and there lay his strength.

Photo Credits:

Left: Gandhi spinning, December 1929 (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

Right: Gandhi at his Johannesburg law firm, 1905 (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography (Volume I: 1889-1947) by Sarvepalli Gopal (1976)

After serving in Jawaharlal Nehru’s government for ten years, Sarvepalli Gopal opens his biography of India’s first prime minister with a pledge to maintain objectivity. Gopal appears to overcome his biases, tracking Nehru from his privileged upbringing in Allahbad to his assumption of power in New Delhi in 1947. The author’s focus on the evolution of Nehru’s political thinking proves particularly compelling. We see Nehru as an enthusiastic young Congressman embrace Gandhian nationalism, writing in 1922: “In the golden days to come when the history of our times and our country comes to be written, the present will occupy a glorious chapter.” Gopal dampens this trademark romanticism of Nehru’s writings, putting his subject’s assertions and musings into conversation with the correspondence and observations of a wide range of contemporaries. The sources depict a wavering politician becoming a respected national leader. Nehru steps out of the shadows of his father, Motilal, and Mohandas Gandhi, forging his own intellectual path and developing a concrete vision for an independent India. He maneuvers the cause of Swaraj (home rule) toward a call for independence, proves instrumental in negotiations with the British Raj, and deviates from Gandhian ideals, embracing notions of industrialization and democratic socialism.

Despite his balanced assessment of Nehru and his Congress allies, Gopal leaves a gaping hole in his analysis of Nehru’s controversial role in India’s partition. The author neglects to consult primary sources surrounding Muslim League leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Indeed, the papers of Muslim leaders fail to appear in Gopal’s work while the collections of top Congressmen and British administrators garner manifold citations. The resulting imbalance paints Jinnah as obstinate and prideful, particularly in the Muslim League’s rejection of the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan. In spite of this substantial shortcoming in engaging available sources, Gopal’s work provides an intimate and appropriately critical view of Jawaharlal Nehru’s development as a nationalist leader and statesman.

Photo credits:

Photographer unknown, “Jawaharlal Nehru hands out sweets to students at Nongpoh in Meghalaya”

Flickr user ktravasso via Wikimedia Commons

Che: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson (2010)

by Edward Shore

In July 1997, a Cuban-Argentine forensic team unearthed the skeletal remains of Comandante Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Vallegrande, Bolivia.Thirty years earlier, on October 9, 1967, CIA-trained Bolivian Special Forces agents had captured and executed the thirty-nine-year-old revolutionary before dumping his body in a shallow pit near a dirt runway. While writing Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, Jon Lee Anderson had gathered new intelligence that led directly to the location of Guevara’s body. The forensic experts immediately distinguished Guevara’s remains from the others. After his death, Che’s executioners had amputated his hands, placed them in a jar of formaldehyde, and sent them to Fidel Castro. Following exhumation, the fallen guerrillas’ remains were placed in coffins and flown to Cuba. That summer, Che Guevara had finally returned to his adoptive homeland.

Fifteen years after its publication, A Revolutionary Life remains the definitive work on Che Guevara, the dashing Argentine rebel whose “epic dream was to end poverty and injustice in Latin America and the developing world through armed revolution.” Jon Lee Anderson traces Che’s extraordinary life, from his comfortable upbringing in Argentina to the battlefields of the Cuban Revolution; from the halls of power in Castro’s government to his failed campaign in the Congo, and assassination in the Bolivian jungle. Unlike past biographers of Che, Anderson gained unprecedented access to personal archives maintained by Che’s widow, as well as Cuban government documents long kept secret during the Cold War. He conducts extensive interviews with Che’s comrades and enemies, including Felíx Rodriguez, the mercurial Cuban-American CIA operative and Bay of Pigs veteran who ordered Che’s execution.

Anderson paints the portrait of an idealistic, ambitious, and complex man whose unshakable committment was made even more powerful by his unusual combination of romantic passion and coldly analytic thought. He recalls Ernesto Guevara’s epic motorcycle journey through South America as a medical student while underscoring how U.S. intervention in Latin America crystallized Ernesto’s revolutionary consciousness. In June 1954, Ernesto sojourned as a physician in Guatemala, providing free medical care to the poor in the countryside. When a CIA coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, he sought refuge in the Argentinean Embassy. That summer, Guevara became convinced that only armed revolution could secure the future of oppressed and marginalized Latin Americans everywhere.

Anderson revisits Guevara’s diaries to recapture his first meeting with Fidel Castro in Mexico City. Seeking to recruit new volunteers for a revolutionary war against the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in Cuba, Castro took an immediate liking to the zealous doctor from Argentina who longed to prove his revolutionary credentials. In November 1956, Guevara, Fidel Castro, his younger brother Raul, and eighty volunteers set sail for Cuba, launching a guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra mountains that would oust Batista on New Years Day 1959.

In January 1959, Che personally oversaw the revolution’s consolidation. He implemented the Agrarian Reform Law of 1959, presided over the trials and executions of ex-Batista functionaries, represented Cuba at the United Nations, and commanded revolutionary forces during the Bay of Pigs invasion. By 1965, Che grew tired of his desk job at the Economy Ministry. Anderson argues that the thrill of battle gave Che meaning. He dreamed of exporting the Cuban Revolution to the rest of Latin America and he chose Bolivia to open a new front. However, unlike Cuba, the Bolivian campaign was a disaster from the start. It was also Che’s last. The local Bolivian Communist Party refused to support the Cuban revolutionary effort on their soil. Che’s team also failed to recruit Quechua Indians. In autumn 1967, the guerrillas ran out of weapons, ammunition, and supplies. CIA-trained Bolivian Special Forces ambushed Guevara’s troops in Vallegrande. On October 10, 1967, the world woke up to the news that Che Guevara had been killed in the Bolivian jungle.

A Revolutionary Life is a must-read for Latin Americanists, Cold War buffs, and aspiring revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries everywhere. Anderson sheds light upon little known details of Che’s life, including his harsh criticism of the Soviet Union and his ardent support for the emergent “nonaligned” movement in the Third World. Most important, he emphasizes Che’s unyielding commitment to his beliefs. While other Marxist-Leninists exploited their privilege, Che remained a full-time revolutionary. When he wasn’t studying political economy, Che could be found teaching literacy and arithmetic to his young bodyguards or working eighteen-hour days cutting sugar cane as part of his voluntary labor program. He believed firmly in the possibility of a pan-Latin American revolution, a cause for which he readily gave his life.

Finally, Anderson’s is a biography that calls into question the dismissal of revolutionary socialism and alternative paths to development in Latin America. Today, leftists in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina breathe life into Che’s pan-Latin American vision, rejecting orthodox neoliberalism in favor of state-sponsored development and regional integration. They threaten to boycott the upcoming Organization of American States (OAS) summit in Cartagena, Colombia, if the United States continues to prevent Cuba from participating. Meanwhile, Bolivian President Evo Morales recently ordered the armed forces to adopt Che’s famous salutation, “hasta la victoria siempre” or “forever onward toward victory,” as its official slogan. Ironically, the very institution that killed Che Guevara forty-five years ago now immortalizes his legacy. In 2012, Che still lives.

Photo credits:

“Memorial service march for victims of the La Coubre explosion,” 5 March 1960

Museo Che Guevara via Wikimedia Commons

Carol M. Highsmith, “Hand painted mural showing the Cuban flag and Che Guevara, neighborhood in Old Havana, Cuba,” 11 January 2010

Photographer’s own via The Library of Congress

You may also like:

Takkara Brunson’s “Making History” podcast, where she talks to us about her research in Cuba and her dissertation on gender and social identity in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

Aragon Storm Miller’s review of “Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba’s Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis.”

Yana Skorobogatov’s review of “Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976”

Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins (2002)

After a long career among both politicians and literary lights, Roy Jenkins perhaps found his ideal subject in his last great biography, Churchill. Fans of the reputation-blackening revisionism common to the genre will find little to love in this laudatory account. The political battles and courageous stands that typified Churchill take center stage over more personal details, though his literary achievements provide a constant subtheme. A former Labour Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jenkins brings an unparalleled level of Parliamentary knowledge to the recounting of his subject’s long political career. As a result, Churchill stands as not just a biography of an almost mythic figure but also a fascinating account of rough and tumble British politics from the end of the Victorian era to the dawn of the Cold War.

Jenkin’s depiction encompasses the whole of his subject’s extended and exciting life. The author ably navigates the uneven waters of Churchill’s early years, from his daring escape from an enemy prison during the Boer War to his role behind the disastrous Gallipoli raid in World War I. According to Jenkins, the young Member of Parliament (MP) attained high rank in governments under two parties despite repeated blunders because “He was too good a trumpet and too dangerous an adversary” to be omitted. Characteristic energy and outspokenness explain Churchill’s meteoric rise, but his impulsive style and conventional, imperialist sympathies led to marginalization when he failed to adapt to the dynamic politics of interwar England. During these “wilderness years,” Churchill bucked the pro-Chamberlain mood of the nation with calls for a more aggressive response to German rearmament. Such opinions, while contentious at the time, helped position the maverick politician for his return to power at the beginning of World War II. In this congruence of events, Jenkins finds the promise of Churchill’s personality and political career realized. The new prime minister’s strategic mind, Edwardian optimism, disdain for unnecessary slaughter, and enthusiasm for combat made him “the perfect man for 1940 and 1941.” The generous depiction of the wartime years clearly recounts the important political debates that helped define allied strategy, but it also makes room for amusing anecdotes – including Churchill’s use of a golden bathtub after his triumphal arrival in liberated Paris.

The biography examines the Cold War largely as a dénouement after the triumph of the mid-1940s, but Jenkins provides an interesting discussion of the politician’s preoccupation with nuclear weapons and his ambiguous approach to European unification. Thorough and expansive in scope, Churchill serves as a panoramic view of the first half of the twentieth century through the eyes of one of its most famous and colorful figures.

Erudite, astute, and clearly written, Jenkins’ work stands as a model for the epic life story. The biography excludes few details, but even the most complicated and tedious aspects of policymaking– including the balancing of the British budget – appear contentious and exciting in the author’s able hands. Jenkins invests his work with a level of dynamism and historical importance from its very first page, demonstrating how Winston Churchill’s life served to prepare him for the role of wartime leader. The result is a sterling biography of a truly impressive personality, whom Jenkins glowingly describes “as the greatest human being to ever occupy 10 Downing Street.”

Photo credit:

Churchill on the East Bank of the Rhine, south of Wesel, Morris (Sgt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Imperial War Museum Collection, via Wikimedia Commons

Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary by Bertrand M. Patenaude (2009)

by Andrew Straw

Within the span of thirty years, Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (Trotsky) went from living as a revolutionary in exile to being one of the world’s most successful revolutionary leaders, only to spend the waning years of his life back in exile and on the run from the regime whose creation defined his life’s work. In Trotsky: The Downfall of a Revolutionary, Stanford Lecturer and Hoover Archives Fellow Bertrand M. Patenaude provides the definitive account of the events leading up to Trotsky’s assassination by a Soviet agent in August 1940 at his Mexican residence. Patenaude’s work highlights the paranoia, contradictions, ideological stubbornness, cultural intrigues, and violence that led to Trotsky’s eventual exile from the Soviet Union and his tense journey through European exile to Mexico, where Trotsky’s violent past caught up with him.

Few authors bring their extensive archival research to life in the way Patenaude does as he ushers the reader through the last years of Trotsky’s life as if writing a fictional thriller. While thoroughly examining the chronology of events during Trotsky’s exile, Patenaude takes strategic pauses in order reflect on Trotsky’s revolutionary career and give events both global and regional historical context. The author reminds readers how Trotsky lost the power struggle to Stalin, delves into family and sexual matters, addresses arguments made by earlier biographers and examines Trotsky’s influence among Communists and Socialists in the Americas and Europe.

Patenaude explores the tensions that Trotsky’s arrival in Mexico created for that country’s leftists and shows how much of his support in the later years came from American Trotskyites from New York to Minneapolis. His friendships with world-renowned artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera mix into the narrative alongside Trotsky’s rivalries with Soviet political contemporaries Stalin, Bukharin, and Kamenev. His relationship with wife Natalia and the sad story of his family both in and out of the Soviet Union is another constant thread. Some of the most intriguing parts of the book examine the assassins and GPU (Soviet secret police) infiltrators whose work eventually led, after one failed attempted, to Trotsky’s mortal wounds.

Pantenuade uses his story-telling skills to highlight both the contradictions of Trotsky’s ideological arrogance and portray his real human concerns and sensitivities. Trotsky was an ideologue so stubborn that he could barely agree with many Trotskyites, but he was also talented at seducing women and had a profound love for cactuses. The way in which Trotsky and those around him became increasingly paranoid leads up to the shock and horror of the assassination as it unfolded. One can easily picture oneself standing in the guard’s place and contemplating what steps might have been taken to prevent the inevitable.

Still, the humanization of Trotsky does not necessarily force the reader to sympathize with “the Old Man.” In fact, readers may even be agitated by how such an intelligent and human character could be so stubborn and un-recanting. After all, how could a man who pointed out the dangers in Lenin’s program of centralized terror before 1917 never once question the original Bolshevik revolution, even as the same ideas he once feared were actively hunting him down? Patenaude’s work gives the reader an enhanced understanding of Trotsky’s life and the relevant characters and events leading up to that paradoxical, and bloody fate.

More on Lev Trotsky:

Rare, high quality photographs of Trotsky in Mexico from the Hoover Archives
Bertrand Patenaude discussing his work on Trotsky’s life in Mexico (video)
Trotsky denouncing Stalin (in English) from Mexico (video)

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