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Title: Evita First Lady: A Biography of Eva Peron by John Barnes ISBN: 0-8021-3479-3 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: October, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Evita First Lady : A Biography of Eva Peron
Comment: I am a biography buff. I prefer fact over fiction and read just about every autobiography and biography that I can get my hands on. Often I have found the need to read several biographies by various authors to get a clear picture and understanding of the subject's life and character. Not this time - Evita First Lady is an exquisitely written biography. It is not a bit of fluff but a riviting account of the life and times of one of history's most notorious first ladies. I highly recommend John Barnes' book.
Rating: 5
Summary: "Truth stranger than fiction"
Comment: I am very familiar with Latin American writers and read them in the Spanish. I read this book in Spanish even though it originally was in English! John Barnes is a very experienced journalist who was stationed in Bueonos Aires for various major publications. He has worked all over the world in places like Argentina, Chile. No. Ireland and covered the Iran Iraq was for Newsweek. With this background and talent he has crafted a facinating book about Eva Peron. It's true that there is a lot of politics but when you are first lady it goes with the territory. It's how she and Col. Peron transformed and revoluncionized Argentina just before the end of WW 11 that is so interesting. Evita left a little pueblo at 15 with no formal education, worked her way up to being a second rate actriz in their film industry. She fell in love with Col Peron many years her senior and took control of the country. It turnes out she was the brains and fierce driving spirit in the process who died at age 32. The major labor union petioned the Pope to have her cannonized a saint! I found this book by the pro John Barnes a real treat.
Rating: 2
Summary: Subdued variation of the "Black Myth of Evita"
Comment: Though not quite as vicious as THE WOMAN WITH THE WHIP (the basis for the musical EVITA), and even sympathetic in parts, this book is still full of errors. The most notable error being the most often repeated by other biographers as well: the assertion that Evita organized a rally to free Juan Peron from prison and thereby usher him into the presidency of Argentina (this historical inaccuracy made its way into the Broadway musical, and eventually into the movie version). The rally that freed Peron from prison was organized by the unions, to which Evita, still an actress at the time, had no affiliation.
But I can understand why that myth is recounted here as fact: because it fits well into the author's over-all thesis that Evita was a power hungry woman who calculated her rise to the top. Whether she was power hungry or not, she did accumulate great power. But she did not, and could not have, really shaped any of the events that brought her to power (what brought Evita to power was her husband Juan Peron, and what brought Juan Peron to power was the situation caused by the embargos placed on Argentina by the United States; for further elaboration on this, I recommend Lawrence W. Levine's book INSIDE ARGENTINA FROM PERON TO MENEM). This author would have done better to have just described what 'was,' rather than trying to describe 'why' it was.
The difficulty in understanding Evita is that her life is so shrouded in myth. It's my opinion that a serious biographer would therefore steer clear of all "interpretations" of Evita (i.e., interpretations of her character and motivations), and focus on simply "hammering out" the basic details of her life (since they are in such great dispute, even 50 years after her death). Instead, the author of this book tried to portray her as something of a "romance novel heroine." The tone of the book is a little too stylized. The author even occasionally describes what Evita said to Peron behind closed doors when no one else was present, which is where it particularly takes on the tone of a romance novel because the dialogue is melodramatic. In addition, Peron and Evita never gave personal interviews regarding the private details of their relationship (this was the 1950s where people, especially politicians, were much less likely to talk about these things).
The best thing about this book is probably the collection of pictures, 16 pages in all (all black and white). And I don't mean that as an insult at all. This book actually contains some great reproductions.
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Title: Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron by Nicholas Fraser, Marysa Navarro ISBN: 0393315754 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: In My Own Words: Evita by Eva Peron, Laura Dail, Joseph Page ISBN: 1565843533 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: November, 1996 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Santa Evita by TOMAS ELOY MARTINEZ ISBN: 0679768149 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 July, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title:Biography - Evita: The Woman Behind the Myth ASIN: 6304475101 Publisher: A & E Entertainment Pub. Date: 24 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $14.95 |
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Title: Eva Peron: The Myths of a Woman by Julie M. Taylor ISBN: 0226791440 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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