On Latin America

Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara
By Jorge G. Castañeda. New York: Knopf, 1997. 456 pp., $30.

How does a man become a myth? And how do you disentangle the myth from the man? To answer only one of these questions in the case of Ernesto "Che" Guevara would be a daunting task for any writer, but Mexican political scientist and Current History contributing editor Jorge Castañeda tackles both in a compelling narrative that is part biography, part political analysis, and part philosophical meditation on the confluence of politics, culture, and power.

All Che's dimensions are here: Che the young guerrilla leader and follower of "Saint Marx"; Che the fastidious central bank head in Castro's newly installed government; Che the Time magazine-ordained "brain of the revolution" receiving a stream of visiting liberal/leftist intellectuals. But there is also the Che who established Cuba's first labor camp, which housed both dissidents and homosexuals, and the Che who was not willing to grapple with a central truth: that revolution is not an end in itself.

It was, of course, the first Che who became the myth and icon, his bearded, bereted visage silk-screened onto innumerable T-shirts above the proclamation "Every nation liberated is a step toward victory." Why this Che eclipsed the others--and why those T-shirts remain sentimental keepsakes for many a baby boomer in Paris, Berkeley, and Mexico City--forms the central question in this masterful work, which exposes both the man and the myth.

W. W. F.

Constructing Democratic Governance: Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s. Three volumes:

Edited by Jorge I. Domínguez and Abraham F. Lowenthal. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Volume 1, $13.95, paper; Volumes 2 and 3, $15.95 each, paper.

The editors of Constructing Democratic Governance have assembled a stellar cast of scholars to investigate the state of democracy in Latin America in the 1990s. The series of thematic essays in the introductory volume offers an excellent introduction to the main issues confronting the region, issues that are examined in depth in the individual country chapters found in the accompanying volumes.

W. W. F.

Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas

Edited by Tom Farer. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. 416 pp., $38.50, cloth; $19.95, paper.

The international response to Latin America's democratization is ably and thoroughly reviewed in this edited volume. The essays on the challenges to the international community posed by Cuba and Mexico, written by Jorge Domínguez and Denise Dresser, respectively, are especially valuable.

W. W. F.