The Rebel Scribe

Reviews / Votes

Neal admires the fierce intellectual independence and penetrating, skeptical eye of Carleton Beals, who died in 1979 at the age of 85. Beals was a remarkably prolific freelance writer of some 40 books and innumerable magazine articles that skewered the ruling elites of Latin America and their U.S. sponsors. As recorded in Neal's highly entertaining biography, Beals's best books, enriched by his extensive travels, offered colorful, often acerbic portraits of the leading political and intellectual figures of the day. * Foreign Affairs * This book is an informative history of a singular correspondent, but in the telling of Beals's story, Neal illuminates many lost or forgotten aspects of the history of the entire twentieth century. * The Progressive Magazine * The book's dry subtitle, Carleton Beals and the Progressive Challenge to U.S. Policy in Latin America, belies an epic tale of adventure, romance, and revolution.... Beals' own story is poignant and inspirational; his work, as documented by Neal, is a sobering reminder of the malevolent forces that have always shaped history, and the bravery and difficulty of standing up to them. * Montreal Review of Books * In his time and at his best, Carleton Beals was an original, a pioneer who wrote well and got many things right early on, especially on Mexico, Cuba and Central America. Christopher Neal brings this alive in a thought-provoking biography that is also a really good read. -- Malcolm Deas, Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony's College and former Director, Latin American Centre, Oxford University A timely work of impressive scholarship, full of original perspectives on American journalism and foreign policy, crisp and provocative. -- Tim Johnson, former Mexico City, Lima, Bogota, and Beijing correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers and member of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning Panama Papers investigative team This is more than a story about an interesting character. It deftly reminds us about the importance of critical journalism and the price paid by those (few) who have dared to practice it with selfless rigor. -- Marc Raboy, Beaverbrook Professor Emeritus in Ethics, Media and Communications, McGill University Christopher Neal's The Rebel Scribe is an engaging biography, written by one experienced journalist about another: the American radical Carleton Beals who, during his long, eventful life (1893-1979), traveled the world-especially Latin America-penning some forty history or "current affairs" books (he often needed the money), as well as several inferior novels. Neal has diligently researched Beals's archive and produced, in brisk, nonjargonistic style, a vigorous account of his interesting and complicated life. -Alan Knight, emeritus professor of Latin American history, University of Oxford * Latin American Research Review * The Rebel Scribe adds richly to our knowledge of both 20th-century Latin American history and the history of American journalism. -- Stephen Kinzer, Revista, Harvard Review of Latin America