Che Guevara book recomendations...

[Fjolnirsson]

All of you amateur and not so amateur historians, here's my situation. My 16 year old niece is a very smart girl, but she's immersed in the socialist school system in CA. One teacher or another has her convinced that Che was a great freedom fighter for his people, and that he is someone to be admired and emulated. Saw a picture of her the other day wearing a che shirt, and when I asked about it, she responded with a bunch of stuff about how he was a hero, and they were learning about him in class. Not knowing a lot about him myself, except that, well, communism is bad, mmmkay?, I was hoping for a book recommendation or three to teach her about what the guy really stood for....
She's very bright, and reads at a college level, so no worries about that. I've helped her change her mind before, most notably on gun control, but this is something I don't know a lot about myself. So, I guess I'll be buying two copies of whatever...
Help?

[wooderson]

It may be more kind to Che than you're looking for, but the standard bio is just named Che Guevara by Jon Lee Anderson. Never read it myself (having little interest in Che as a person).

I can't think of a widely-read book-length critical biography - the guy has been dead for fourty years, so he's not exactly a target for criticism.

[Fjolnirsson]

Actually, I really do want a relatively unbiased viewpoint. The kid is very good at picking out bias most of the time, it's just that she tends to trust what she's being taught by authority figures without automatically questioning and dissecting it. I'm working on that.

[charby]

buy her this shirt instead of the book

http://www.thoseshirts.com/reaganche.html

[Antibubba]

Has she learned all the words to Kumbaya yet?

[Sergeant Bob]

Its a shame they are teaching in school that Che Guevera is some kind of hero, when in reality all he really was, was a Castro wannabe and a thug who even Castro didn't want around. Thats why he ended up in Bolivia, and he failed miserably their. He wasn't even a good thug.

The History Channel had a pretty good show about him which seemed to be pretty objective and didn't show him in a particularly good light. If you can catch that and have her watch it (TV tends to keep a teen's attention) that might help a bit.

[K Frame]

I think that I shall be ordering myself one of these...



Along with one of these...

[mfree]

Look him up on Wikipedia, it's got enough to stem the tide.

"He was appointed commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison, and during his five-month tenure in that post (January 2 through June 12, 1959),[28] he oversaw the trial and execution of many people, among whom were former Batista regime officials and members of the "Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities" (a unit of the secret police known by its Spanish acronym BRAC). José Vilasuso, an attorney who worked under Guevara at La Cabaña preparing indictments, said that these were lawless proceedings where "the facts were judged without any consideration to general juridical principles" and the findings were pre-determined by Guevara.[29][30] It is estimated that between 156 and 550 people were executed on Guevara's extra-judicial orders during this time.[31]"

[SteveS]

This shirt is even better:

[roo_ster]

"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary...These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the The Wall! (El Paredón)" --Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

"Committed mass murder of political opponents" ought to cover it for most reasonable folk.

A good book that covers the thought of Che-boosters and their results is:
Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot

One of the few critical bios I found (but not read) is the following:
Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him

Alvaro Vargas Llosa had an essay in The New Republic (liberal, center-left political magazine) on the use of a communist mass-murderer as a capitalist tool:
The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand

It is customary for followers of a cult not to know the real life story of their hero, the historical truth...It is not surprising that Guevaras contemporary followers, his new post-communist admirers, also delude themselves by clinging to a mythexcept the young Argentines who have come up with an expression that rhymes perfectly in Spanish: Tengo una remera del Che y no sé por qué, or I have a Che T-shirt and I dont know why.

[De Selby]

The best thing to do is have her read Che's own books: The Motorcycle Diaries and Guerilla Warfare.  Read them with her and ask her some questions...it's not hard to see how full of himself the guy is when you do that.  I think most of his fans just have not read the book.

[Perd Hapley]

As a next step, hip her to some people that are worthy of admiration.  And not just me.  There ARE others.   

[Declaration Day]

http://www.che-mart.com/   

[Sergeant Bob]

http://www.che-mart.com/   

Thats a pretty good site!