After a pop-psychological portrait—Castro is a "narcissist" who "demands total obedience... as a consequence of his evident moral and intellectual superiority"—journalist Montaner (Let's Not Lose the 21st Century, Too), a Cuban exile in Madrid, describes Castro's poor, agrarian childhood and outsider status at law school in Havana. A brief history—from the early 1800s to the insurrection that ousted Batista—contextualizes Montaner's verbose, eloquent, persuasive, impassioned and omnifaceted argument that Castro is a leaping, bounding jackass and cruel to boot (thousands incarcerated, some for decades, for peaceful protest; families forced to denounce defected relatives publicly or face ostracism). He outlines the fascinating, shifting ideological polygon of pro- and anti-Castroists—some of whom Montaner presumably knows (his father was a onetime pro-Castro journalist). The book is extremely personal, to sometimes powerful, sometimes awkward effect. Montaner's unequivocal approval of capitalism (e.g., he describes Cuban athletes defect to escape being "objects owned by the political power," but doesn't acknowledge that U.S. athletes are commonly objectified by corporations), his categorical attack on communism (undifferentiated from Castroism) and his failure to acknowledge his own justifiable subjectivity call into question his overall perspicacity and reliability. The minute workings of Castro's apparatus (details of property seizure; the neighborhood-watchdog Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) would speak louder if less cluttered by hyperbole: "the professional police officers... feed the insatiable computers of the Ministry of the Interior. No one can escape its magnifying glass." His fair but somewhat incoherent discussion of the U.S. embargo debate will confuse casual readers. Still, Montaner's exuberant, eminently readable popular sociology–cum–biography–cum–political science will please the bulk of the Cuban diaspora (discussed at some length), and even skeptical progressives will be compelled to read on. (July)
