Fidel castro biography education harvard

When Jonathan M. Hansen decided to write a biography of Fidel Castro’s early years, he hoped to “get past the demonization and celebration and recover the complex person in the middle.”

“Biographers and historians on both poles have treated his life like prosecutors scouring his past to find evidence to convict a guy we don’t like,” said Hansen, senior lecturer on social studies and faculty associate at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

“This, to me, makes for bad history and disappointing biography.”

In researching “Young Castro: The Making of a Revolutionary,” Hansen followed the educator’s proverb: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” He was relentless in his pursuit of archival documents and gained the trust of dozens of Cubans who knew Castro.

The author of “Guantanamo: An American History”and “The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890‒1920,” Hansen discussed the chall