FALKLANDS WAR: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END by Hourly History

Published in 2020 by Hourly History

Hourly History specializes in one hour reads about a historical topic. Giant events in history don't fare to well in this series, but a war that lasted 2 and 1/2 months is perfect for this format.

This little history tells the history of the Falklands (it keeps switching hands between the U.K., Argentina, and France with occasional periods pf complete abandonment) and continues on to detail the political situations in Argentina and the U.K. leading up to the war.

I was 14 years old during this war and one of my friends was very interested in this war while it was going on so I heard about it a lot. But, it turns out that I was about half right about everything I remembered. Surprise! 14 year old misses a lot of things!

I thought this was an excellent little history. I rate this e-book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Falklands War: A History from Beginning to End. 

CHE: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE (graphic novel) by Jon Lee Anderson (author) and Jose Hernandez (illustrator)

Originally published in 2016.

English translation published

in 2018 by Penguin Press.

Before reading this massive 421 page graphic novel, I knew relatively little about Che Guevara (1928-1967.) I knew that he was from South America, he was famous for his part in the Cuban Revolution and that he died trying to lead a revolution in Bolivia. And, of course, I knew him from the famous picture.

This graphic novel filled in a lot of blanks for me. It is a friendly biography of Che but doesn't glorify him. When I got to the end I was struck by how much of a failure Che actually was after he left Cuba. He tried to replicate the success of the Cuban Revolution but he could not. It's hard to tell if counter-revolutionary measures from the governments he was trying to overthrow (and the U.S.) were simply more successful than Batista had been in Cuba or if they were missing an additional spark like the Castro brothers had provided.

The graphic novel was put together well. It had no confusing arrangements of comic panels (this is more common of a problem than one might think) and the story was told in a straightforward linear manner. 

Well done.

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. 

This can be found on Amazon.com here: CHE: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE (graphic novel) by Jon Lee Anderson (author) and Jose Hernandez (illustrator).