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Alfred J. López
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José Martí: A Revolutionary Life (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture) Kindle Edition

by Alfred J. López (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 28 ratings
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“The one and only book that treats the nineteenth-century Cuban figure José Martí as a human instead of an idol, an apostle, or an unblemished personality.” —Tom Miller, author of Revenge of the Saguaro
 
José Martí (1853–1895) was the founding hero of Cuban independence. In all of modern Latin American history, arguably only the “Great Liberator” Simón Bolívar rivals Martí in stature and legacy. Today he is revered by both the Castro regime and the Cuban exile community, whose shared veneration of the “apostle” of freedom has led to his virtual apotheosis as a national saint.
 
In José Martí: A Revolutionary Life, Alfred J. López presents the definitive biography of the Cuban patriot and martyr. Writing from a nonpartisan perspective and drawing on years of research using original Cuban and U.S. sources, including materials never before used in a Martí biography, López strips away generations of mythmaking and portrays Martí as Cuba’s greatest founding father and one of Latin America’s literary and political giants, without suppressing his public missteps and personal flaws. In a lively account that engrosses like a novel, López traces the full arc of Martí’s eventful life, from his childhood and adolescence in Cuba, to his first exile and subsequent life in Spain, Mexico City, and Guatemala, through his mature revolutionary period in New York City and much-mythologized death in Cuba on the battlefield at Dos Ríos. The first major biography of Martí in over half a century and the first ever in English, José Martí is the most substantial examination of Martí’s life and work ever published.
 
“The life, the history and the facts are all here in López’s volume.” —The Washington Post
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  4. Publisher
    University of Texas Press
  5. Publication date
    November 1, 2014
  6. File size
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The life, the history and the facts are all here in López’s volume. It is thorough, compelling and a generally lively account..." ― The Washington Post

Review

"This is the one and only book that treats the nineteenth-century Cuban figure José Martí as a human instead of an idol, an apostle, or an unblemished personality. . . . Anyone now writing about Martí and the war of independence will have to refer to this book. . . . It establishes a new field." -- Tom Miller, author of Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels through Castro’s Cuba

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00PBCY7ME
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Texas Press (November 1, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 1, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 5374 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 431 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 28 ratings

About the author

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Alfred J. López

Alfred J. López

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Born in New York City to Cuban parents and raised in Miami, Alfred J. López is Professor and Head of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University. He is the author or editor of four books, the latest of which is José Martí: A Revolutionary Life. López is also the founding editor of The Global South, the leading academic journal of globalization studies. His essays have appeared in American Literature, Comparative Literature, South Atlantic Quarterly, and many other journals, as well as The Huffington Post. His next book, The Apostle and his Afterlife: A Posthumous History of José Martí, is forthcoming in 2022.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
28 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Phil Sauerbrun
5.0 out of 5 stars An invaluable resource in the historic district of Ybor City
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2023
Verified Purchase
As a tourism Counselor in Ybor City, this book has been invaluable in understanding Jose Marti and explaining him to the many people who come to Ybor City in search of the real Jose Marti. The depth of research into the details of Marti's life is incredible. Having read 5 biographies on Marti, I would contend that this book is the definitive biography in English.
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Ponce
5.0 out of 5 stars that it was burdensome for Cuban-American like myself to get the gist of it
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2015
Verified Purchase
Professor López did an outstanding job researching this book. I had tried reading Jorge Mañach's book on Martí in the past, but I could only understand only 5% of its content. Its Spanish was so erudite, that it was burdensome for Cuban-American like myself to get the gist of it. This is not to detract in any way from Mañach's book, which many judge to be the definitive book on Martí (in Spanish). What makes López' book so wonderful is that it is the first written in English. Moreover, López looked up to Martí as a man -- with all his frailties and genius. Thus, he added another dimension to Martí that up to now was unknown. Rather than detracting from his persona, López made him better understood and relatable. Anyone who is anxious to find out the racial dimensions of the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain and on Martí's thoughts should read this book.
6 people found this helpful
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Ricardo Fernandez
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read about Jose Marti.
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2018
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Really enjoyed this book. Historical with just enough of a personal touch aboutMarti's life. Used the content to prepare a lecture for a large group of people.
2 people found this helpful
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Clifford Mault
5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2018
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I was pretty ignorant of Jose Marti before reading this book. Not now.
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Alfredo Ricardo
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2016
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WONDERFULL BOOK
2 people found this helpful
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Humberto Rasi
4.0 out of 5 stars Good biography of Cuban national hero
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2015
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Still reading it. Good biography of Cuban national hero..
One person found this helpful
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Manuel A. Tellechea
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2015
The definitive biography of José Martí and the first to merit that distinction. To have reached that preeminence before López's biography required little more than to include an index, footnotes and bibliography. All these are missing without exception from previous attempts in Spanish and understandably so, since most of Martí's so-called biographies are prose poems that chronicle the author's particular devotion to him and do not require that fact to be documented. In English, there have been biographies which contained the requisite academic apparatus but whose text made it abundantly clear that these resources, if consulted at all, had been misunderstood or subordinated to a grand plan to distort Martí's life and thought and drive him into a political rut which he had always consciously avoided. López's effort is notable, and, indeed, singular, because it is neither hagiographic nor tendentious; it gathers the facts, from the widest range of sources, and presents them objectively and in concert. No aspect of Martí's life is slighted in favor of another. No subject is avoided because it does not rise to the gravitas which is usually imposed on Martí. The facts are enough to give Martí his proper stature and they do. It is not López's driving concern to instill in you love and admiration for Martí; but love and admiration you will feel, after reading this book, even if you had never heard of Martí before.

It is to be lamented — and López laments it, too — that Carlos Ripoll, who wrote more than 20 books on Martí and hundreds of articles and pamphlets on every imaginable aspect of his life, never attempted a comprehensive one-volume biography. It was not from want of encouragement. All his friends, including me, suggested it to him. Indeed, I tried to convince him that he had already written such a biography and published it serially, if not sequentially, over 40 years. All he had to do was to put all his articles in chronological order, eliminate any repetitions and create transitions when necessary, and the biography would be a fait accompli. Of course, such a task of condensation would have baffled if not defeated even the editors of Reader's Digest. But time was precious to him and he wanted to use what little remained to continue exploring other facets of Martí's life and searching for the new and unknown, which was his life's passion. Ripoll was always too occupied making new discoveries about Martí — that is, changing and augmenting the facts of his biography — to actually write his biography, or, rather, to take a cache image of something that was always in flux thanks to him. But now that his pen is stilled, it is possible, indeed essential, for someone to synthesize his discoveries and give us a biography of Martí that incorporates them, which, by virtue of that fact, will be the definitive biography.

I will not say that this is the biography that Ripoll would have written if he had had the time and inclination. I will say, however, that it is the closest approach that we will ever have to a one-volume biography by Ripoll. Moreover, López's admiration for Ripoll is the surest guarantee of his intellectual honesty and his impeccable lineage as a martiano.

http://josemartiblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/jose-marti-revolutionary-life-by-alfred.html
13 people found this helpful
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Antonio de la Cova
1.0 out of 5 stars Two of the other reviewers, Manuel Tellechea and Jorge ...
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2015
Two of the other reviewers, Manuel Tellechea and Jorge Ponce, are personal friends of the author. Lopez purloined images from my web site and plagiarized some of my academic work. Read about the controversy here [...]
11 people found this helpful
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