Jon Lee Anderson

Che Guevara's legend is unmatched in the modern world. Since his assassination in 1967 at the age of 39, the Argentine revolutionary has become an internationally famed icon, as revered as he is controversial. A Marxist ideologue, he sought to end global inequality by bringing down the American capitalist empire through armed guerrilla warfare - and has few rivals in the Cold War era as an apostle of change. In Che: A Revolutionary Life, Jon Lee Anderson and José Hernández reveal the man behind the myth, creating a complex portrait of this passionate idealist. Adapted from Anderson's masterwork, Che transports us from young Ernesto's medical school days to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution; from his place of power alongside Castro to his disastrous sojourn in the Congo, and his violent end in Bolivia. Through renowned Mexican artist José Hernández's drawings, we feel the bullets fly past in Cuba; smell the smoke of Castro's cigars; and scrutinize the face of the weary guerrilla as he is called 'Comandante' for the first time. With astonishing precision, colour, and drama, Che makes us first-hand witnesses to the revolutionary life and times of this historic figure. Combining Anderson's unprecedented access and research with Hernández's emotionally gripping artwork, Che resurrects the man for a new generation of readers.

Acclaimed around the world and a national best-seller, this is the definitive work on Che Guevara, the dashing rebel whose epic dream was to end poverty and injustice in Latin America and the developing world through armed revolution. Jon Lee Anderson's biography traces Che's extraordinary life, from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from the halls of power in Castro's government to his failed campaign in the Congo and assassination in the Bolivian jungle. Anderson has had unprecedented access to the personal archives maintained by Guevara's widow and carefully guarded Cuban government documents. He has conducted extensive interviews with Che's comrades--some of whom speak here for the first time--and with the CIA men and Bolivian officers who hunted him down. Anderson broke the story of where Guevara's body was buried, which led to the exhumation and state burial of the bones. Many of the details of Che's life have long been cloaked in secrecy and intrigue. Meticulously researched and full of exclusive information, Che Guevara illuminates as never before this mythic figure who embodied the high-water mark of revolutionary communism as a force in history.

Che Guevara's dream was an epic one - to unite Latin America and the rest of the developing world through armed revolution, and to end once and for all the poverty, injustice and petty nationalisms that had bled it for centuries. This work tells the tale of revolution, international intrigue and covert operations.

Jon Lee Anderson first reported from Afghanistan in the late 1980s, covering the US-backed mujahideen’s insurrection against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul. Within days of the 9/11 attacks, he was again on the ground as an early eyewitness to the new war launched by the US against the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies. At the time, the American military had prevailed on the battlefield, and the newfound peace seemed to offer a precious space for Afghan society to restore itself and to forge a democratic future. But all was not well: Osama bin Laden was still in hiding, the Taliban were stealthily reorganizing for a comeback, and the United States was about to turn its attention to Iraq. To Lose a War collects Anderson’s writing from Afghanistan over a near-quarter-century span, offering a chronological account of a monumental tragedy as it unfolds. The colossal waste, missed signals, and wishful thinking that characterized the twenty-year arc of the US-led war in Afghanistan have consecrated it as one of the greatest foreign policy failures of the modern era, and a bellwether of a larger American imperial decline.

From one of the great foreign correspondents of our time, author of some of the most essential reporting from Afghanistan from before 9/11 to the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, the first full accounting of that entire era, combining previously published dispatches and new reporting into a single epic tapestry Jon Lee Anderson first reported from Afghanistan in the late 1980s, covering the US-backed mujahideen's insurrection against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul. Within days of the 9/11 attacks, he was again on the ground as an early eyewitness to the new war launched by the US against the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies. His reportage from the first year of the war won a number of awards and was published in book form as The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan. At the time, the American military had prevailed on the battlefield, and the newfound peace seemed to offer a precious space for Afghan society to restore itself and to forge a democratic future. But all was not well: Osama bin Laden was still in hiding, the Taliban were stealthily reorganizing for a comeback, and the United States was about to turn its attention to Iraq. To Lose a War collects Anderson's writing from Afghanistan over a near-quarter-century span. Containing the stories from The Lion's Grave and all of those he published since, as well as important writing appearing here for the first time, the book offers a chronological account of a monumental tragedy as it unfolds. The colossal waste, missed signals, and wishful thinking that characterized the twenty-year arc of the US-led war in Afghanistan have consecrated it as one of the greatest foreign policy failures of the modern era, and a bellwether of a larger American imperial decline.

FINALIST OF THE 2024 LUCIE PHOTO BOOK PRIZEA groundbreaking investigation into wildlife conservation, environmental transformation, and efforts to preserve Africa’s natural wilderness by French-Madagascan documentary photographer Guillaume Bonn.Paradise Inc. offers an unvarnished glimpse into the realities of Africa’s ecosystems and our collective future, as the disruptions of climate change, economic expansion, and environmental efforts reshape the world before our eyes. For decades, Bonn has told the stories that the world is afraid to hear, championing the silenced and refusing to turn away from the truth. Paradise Inc. is the culmination of twenty years dedicated to documenting the last days of Africa’s vast natural landscapes, where countless expeditions have taken the photographer deep across nearly every country on the continent. Far from tired stereotypes, “greenwashing” efforts, and ready-made solutions, Paradise Inc. shines an unblinking light onto the paradoxes, consequences, and truths that lurk in plain sight behind the environmental “paradise” in Africa. Featuring an introduction by world-renowned journalist Jon Lee Anderson and foreword by founder of Across Maasai Land Initiative and Maasai elder Ezekiel Ole Katato, Paradise Inc. continues the work Bonn began as a player in the Africa State of Mind project (Thames & Hudson, 2020), now presented in its entirety.While beautifully and poignantly illustrated, Paradise Inc. is more than a visual journey. Nostalgic and critical, it is declaration of the photographer’s love for Africa—which Jon Lee Anderson (The New Yorker) calls his “inescapable muse”—an expression of his fear that it might one day disappear, and an impassioned call to action. In this latest work, Bonn defies the clichés of a wildlife wonderland that haunt the collective imagination, instead asking uncompromising questions and inviting us to strive for sustainable solutions together.Born in Madagascar and raised in the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, and Kenya, Bonn brings a unique perspective rooted in his French and Malagasy heritage and diverse upbringing, exploring the idea of “Africanness” in his work. It is through this intimate duality that Paradise Inc. delivers its urgent critique, unveils nuances, and captures the thrill of being in the wild.

“There are photographs in this book that will stay in the hearts and minds of the people who view them, and who, like Corinne Dufka, will resolve to make it their life’s purpose to do what they can to help stop war.” — Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer, The New Yorker This is War presents a tour de force of one of most celebrated women war photographers of her generation. From 1988 to 1999, Capa Gold Medal winner and Pulitzer Prize–nominated photographer Corinne Dufka covered some of the bloodiest conflicts of the late twentieth century. The devastatingly powerful and intimate images in this book chart revolutions and coups, separatist movements, and mass atrocities across nine different countries on three continents. Starting in El Salvador during the Cold War, This Is War moves onto Bosnia, and then Africa, where Dufka reported on the Rwandan genocide and conflicts in South Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Ethiopia, and the Congo. Her photographs are as brutal as they are tender, as mournful as they are meaningful, and are, above all, a testament to the profound toll conflict leaves in its wake. Her images interrogate abuse of power, celebrate defiance, and seek out the humanity of civilians and combatants who lives were torn apart by war. More than just a documentary, This is War is an extraordinary photographic record of war and personal enlightenment. It adds to the historical record of many under-covered conflicts and of the role of women in photojournalism, and urges the viewer to interrogate why conflict in many countries covered in the book, persist to this day. After leaving photojournalism, Dufka went on to a career as a war crimes investigator, for which she was, in 2003, awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. In her introduction to This is War, she notes: “These images beseech us to work harder to honor those who have perished and protect the rest of us from humanity’s worst, most abject failure: its capacity for war.”

El Salvador and Honduras have had the highest homicide rates in the world over the past ten years, with Guatemala close behind. Every day more than 1,000 people-men, women, and children-flee these three countries for North America. Óscar Martínez, author of The Beast, named one of the best books of the year by the Economist, Mother Jones, and the Financial Times, fleshes out these stark figures with true stories, producing a jarringly beautiful and immersive account of life in deadly locations.Martínez travels to Nicaraguan fishing towns, southern Mexican brothels where Central American women are trafficked, isolated Guatemalan jungle villages, and crime-ridden Salvadoran slums. With his precise and empathetic reporting, he explores the underbelly of these troubled places. He goes undercover to drink with narcos, accompanies police patrols, rides in trafficking boats and hides out with a gang informer. The result is an unforgettable portrait of a region of fear and a subtle analysis of the North American roots and reach of the crisis, helping to explain why this history of violence should matter to all of us.

Prior to gaining international renown for his definitive biography of Che Guevara and his firsthand reports on the war in Iraq in the acclaimed THE FALL OF BAGHDAD, Jon Lee Anderson wrote GUERRILLAS, a daring on-the-ground account of five diverse insurgent movements around the world: the mujahedin of Afghanistan, the FMLN of El Salvador, the Karen of Burma, the Polisario of Western Sahara, and a group of young Palestines fighting against Israel in the Gaza Strip. Making the most of unprecedented, direct access to his subjects, Anderson combines powerful storytelling with a balanced, penetrating analysis of each situation. A work of phenomenal range, analytical acuity, and human empathy, GUERRILLAS amply demonstrates why Jon Lee Anderson is one of our most important chroniclers of societies in crisis.

"Reminiscent of the best war literature, such as John Hersey's Hiroshima, Michael Herr's Dispatches, and Michael Kelly's Martyr's Day." --The Washington Post The Fall of Baghdad is a masterpiece of literary reportage about the experience of ordinary Iraqis living through the endgame of the Saddam Hussein regime, its violent fall, and the troubled American occupation. In channeling a tragedy of epic dimensions through the stories of real people caught up in the whirlwind of history, Jon Lee Anderson has written a book of timeless significance.

Prior to gaining international renown for his definitive biography of Che Guevara and first-hand reporting on the war in Iraq for the New Yorker, Jon Lee Anderson wrote Guerrillas, a pioneering account of five diverse insurgent movements around the world--the mujahedin of Afghanistan, the FMLN of El Salvador, the Karen of Burma, the Polisario of Western Sahara, and a group of young Palestinians fighting against Israel in the Gaza Strip. Making the most of unprecedented, direct access to his subjects, Anderson combines powerful, firsthand storytelling with balanced, penetrating analysis of each situation. A work of phenomenal range, analytical acuity, and human empathy, Guerrillas amply demonstrates why Jon Lee Anderson is one of our most important chroniclers of societies in crisis.

The New Yorker correspondent and author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life shares a series of reports from Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, describing a dangerous world of violence, feudal society, conspiracy, religious fanaticism, hardship, and war. Reprint.