PanThe SpectatorThis...is a long book, though it is mercifully an abridgement of the original Spanish edition, which ran to over 1,400 pages. Anything in it both significant and new has escaped me ... All the same, it provokes thoughts. The first is that it confirms the view that history or biography is best written straight, and that funny business should always be avoided ... despite the author’s assertion that he can back anything up with some source or other, the reader has no means of evaluating the claim ... The second thought comes from the book’s enormous load of irrelevant and frequently trivial detail, piled on in the hope that it will give the work authenticity ... Americans, one publishing joke goes, will do anything for Latin America except read about it, and this sort of offer will strengthen that resistance.
