- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Pluto Press (4 April 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0745317006
- ISBN-13: 978-0745317007
- Product Dimensions: 30.1 x 22.2 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 923,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Two images of Ernesto "Che" Guevara have entered modern visual consciousness, folding together photo-journalism and iconography to produce a profound emotional correspondence between subject and viewer. The first, taken by Alberto Díaz Korda of the 31-year-old hero of the Cuban revolution mourning the victims of the La Coubre explosion, has transcended its historical context to become the icon of 20th-century revolution. The second by Freddy Alborta, of the body of Che exhibited by his murderers in a hospital laundry in Bolivia has been compared by John Berger to Rembrandt's Doctor Tulp's Anatomy Lesson and Mantegna's Christ: "In certain rare cases, the tragedy of a man's death completes and exemplifies the meaning of his entire life." If only these two images produce our cultural knowledge of Che Guevara in the West, then to what extent does the man in Korda's photograph disappear, the man whose mind is engaged elsewhere, looking towards a horizon defined by ideology and materialised in the jungle of Bolivia, where he died attempting to realise his ideal of "proletarian internationalism"? Che: Images of a Revolutionary is an extraordinary and revelatory document, collecting together photographs of Guevara from boyhood to death and subsequent iconographic status to tell the story of a man and his ideals. It retrieves the moment when the artistic vanguard walked hand-in-hand with the political vanguard, simultaneously capturing the arc of one man's experience from apolitical wanderer to committed ideologue, doctor to armed guerilla, dissenting intellectual to government-maker. The force of Guevara's charisma will be a revelation to anyone more familiar with the two-tone reduction of his face processed from Korda's original. The images in this book re-suffuse the man with his erotic power, and, as the embodiment of modern revolution, restore the eroticism of revolution itself from its dour propaganda merchants. The Che that emerges is a father cradling his infant son, a spirited boy-man joyfully straddling a motorbike, and the quintessence of existentialism caught in an arresting self-portrait in Dar es Salaam in 1966, wasted away from his chronic asthma after a disastrous incursion into the Congo. When his executioners came for him, he reportedly urged, "Fire, coward, you're going to kill a man." Che: Images of a Revolutionary reminds us of the truth of that.--Larry Brown
Review
'A sure fire bestseller. Che Guevara has become a modern icon, his image available on every conceivalbe consumer product, something he would not have been happy about. This book contains 400 + photographs of Guevara, many available for the first time. They illustrate his move from middle class upbringing to revolutionary politics and eventual martyrdom.' New Statesman 'This large format book provides an admirable introduction to the life of Ernesto Guevara, and his road to becoming El Che.' The British Bulletin of Publications on Latin America
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In 1965, Che Guevara wrote a farewell letter to Fidel Castro, ".....how will you harvest the wheat, and keep the fire going, if I take the song away?" He appreciated his own legend.
Ernesto Guevara de la Cerna had an idyllic childhood and came to maturity as an intellectual, a Marxist and every US government's worst nightmare. Representing universal youth, he had ambitions to travel, was actively anti-establishment, cherishing the ideal of a "romantic" death.
Nurtured as an atheist, anti-fascist, journeys throughout South America introduced realities of true poverty and political oppression. A qualified doctor of medicine, in Mexico he met and shared a prison cell with Fidel Castro. This friendship overturned the USA financed government of Baptista in Cuba, and produced his seminal work "Guerrilla Warfare".
The USA Trade Embargo forced Cuba into "client status" of the Soviet Bloc, precipitating the "Bay of Pigs"invasion.. A year later The Cuban Missile Crisis followed and the brink of nuclear war. In 1963, disillusioned by Cuban and Soviet governments, he continued his travels to Russia, African and Arabic Nations. The latter states were fermenting revolutions of their own. Whilst supporting Congo rebels he was ousted from government.
Turning to support Bolivian rebels on October 9 1967 he was wounded, captured, then summarily executed by the Bolivian Army, in the presence of a CIA representative.. The grisly story of his human remains is graphically depicted.
This book is superbly presented, if founded in uncritical adulation. It contains everything you will ever need to know of the entire life and death of its subject. Ironically, Marxist Che emerges as Christ-like in his purity. Nevertheless, as historical reference, it is an important contribution with an outstanding pictorial record. It is also an unvarnished account of the numerous revolutionary upheavals of the period, albeit expressed from Che's own perspective. Definitely a tour de force.
Format:Paperback
An excellent publication with many photographs that will be new even to ardent Che aficionadas. An informative text in a well produced volume.
The second hand copy was in first class condition like new at a very reasonable price with prompt delivery.
The second hand copy was in first class condition like new at a very reasonable price with prompt delivery.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Best photos
17 July 2001
Format:Paperback
Anyone interested in one of the 20th centuries most enigmatic and charismatic figures will love this book. This is an excellent source to compliment the book by Jon Anderson or to enjoy by itself. Filled with over 400 photgraphs, many rare and never seen before, this book captures the image of the man in the various years of his life, most notably his years spent in Cuba. To see the man in all his glory, whether it be sipping his beloved mate, smoking a cigar or fighting his guerrilla war somewhere, his face is unforgetable and this book shows the many facets of his personality. The text is an easy read that can be read in one sitting but the pictures are priceless and require one's attention over and over. This is a book that sits prominently in full view in my house for quick browsing. The photos are exquisite, taken from various sources including one's taken by Che himself. Of particular interest is a section of the book that deals with the now fanous photo taken by Korda that is the image most people know of Che. This is the image that adorns everything from t-shirts to money that was taken during a service for for the victims of an explosion on a ship in 1960, one of the images of our times. The contact strip is included and the various degrees of differences can be noted. Of even more interest is the image of Che's corpse that was displayed by the Bolivian authorites and a comparison to the art of Mantegna's Dead Christ. The resemblance is uncanny. The open eyes of Che, even in death, are more alive than many of the people alive who walk around with tombstones in their eyes. This is an excepional book that chronicles the life and times of Ernesto Guevara, portraying an image in text and magnificent photographs of the man, not the myth, known as Che.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A very interest book . . .
22 May 2001
Format:Paperback
I think this is the best book of Che Guevara that I've read, and im really read a lot of him. It's perspective it's ecuanimous and objetive and show to the readers, many pictures of his life than we never know. I'm not triying to write some kind of promotion but i feel compromised to say my experience with the book.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Great Photos of el Che
2 Sep 2001
Format:Paperback
Filled with photos of Che from childhood until his death, if you want to know more about him thru photography then this book is a fine start. Also to read Che: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson, the best biography ever written about him.
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