Carleton Beals

Carleton Beals (November 13, 1893 – April 4, 1979) was an American journalist, writer, historian, and political activist with a special interest in Latin America. A major journalistic coup for him was his interview with the Nicaraguan rebel Augusto Sandino in February 1928. In the 1920s he was part of the cosmopolitan group of intellectuals, artists, and journalists in Mexico City. He remained an active, prolific, and politically engaged leftist journalist and is the subject of a scholarly biography.

Early life and education Beals was born in Medicine Lodge, Kansas. His father, Leon Eli Beals, lawyer and journalist, was the stepson of Carrie Nation, His mother was Elvina Sybilla Blickensderfer. His brother, Ralph Leon Beals, was the first anthropologist at University of California, Los Angeles.

The family moved from Kansas when Beals was age three, and he attended school in Pasadena, California. After graduating from high school in 1911, he worked a variety of jobs while attending the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied engineering and mining. He won the Bonnheim Essay Prize and the Bryce History Essay Prize. After graduating in 1916, cum laude, There, he founded the English Preparatory Institute in 1919, taught at the American High School during 1919 to 1920, and was on the personal staff of President Carranza (1920). to write a series of articles. He became notable as the only foreign journalist who interviewed General Augusto Sandino during Nicaragua's 1927–33 war against US military occupation.

I have done most of my writing in Spain, Italy, Mexico and Peru, and in this country, chiefly in New York, later in Guilford, Connecticut, since 1957 in Killingworth. (C. Beals) — Beals also wrote more than 45 books, including on history, geography, and travel. Some of his books are written for a juvenile audience. His autobiography, Glass Houses, was published by J.B. Lippincott Company in 1938. His biography subjects included Porfirio Díaz, Huey P. Long, Roberto de la Selva, Stephen F. Austin, John Eliot, Carrie Nation, and Leon Trotsky.

During his career, Beals witnessed Mexican revolutions, lectured on Shakespeare, and was held incommunicado by a Mexican general. His travels took him to French Morocco, Tunisia, Algiers, Greece, Turkey, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the Caribbean. He was a Ford Hall Forum speaker in 1936, and a member of the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky in 1937. The following year, Time magazine called Beals, "the best informed and the most awkward living writer on Latin America."

Later life During the 1960s, he supported the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Beals was a hero to the young people of Cuba.

Selected works

1921, The Mexican As He is 1922, Magdalene of Michoacan 1923, Rome Or Death; the Story of Fascism 1923, Mexico; an Interpretation (Agrarian land reform in Mexico) 1925, Tasks Awaiting President Calles of Mexico 1926, The Church Problem in Mexico 1927, Brimstone and Chili: A Book of Personal Experiences in the Southwest and in Mexico 1929, Mexico's New Leader 1929, Destroying Victor 1930, The Coming Struggle for Latin America 1931, Mexican Maze, with illustrations by Diego Rivera 1932, Porfirio Díaz. Dictator of Mexico 1932, Banana Gold 1933, The Crime of Cuba, with photographs by Walker Evans 1934, Fire on the Andes 1934, Black River 1935, Rifle Rule in Cuba 1935, The Story of Huey P. Long 1936, The Stones Awake: A Novel of Mexico 1936, Prologue to Cuban Freedom 1937, America South 1937, The New Genre of Roberto de la Selva 1937, The Drug Eaters of the High Andes 1938, Glass Houses, Ten Years of Free-Lancing 1939, American Earth; the Biography of a Nation 1939, The Coming Struggle for Latin America 1940, Pan America 1943, Dawn over the Amazon 1948, Lands of the Dawning Morrow: The Awakening from Rio Grande to Cape Horn 1949, The Long Land: Chile 1953, First Men of America 1953, Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas 1955, Our Yankee Heritage: New England's Contribution to American Civilazation 1956, Adventure of the Western Sea, illustrated by Jacob Landau 1956, Taste of Glory; a Novel 1957, John Eliot, the Man Who Loved the Indians (July 31, 1604 – May 20, 1690) 1958, House in Mexico 1960, Cuba's Revolution: The First Year 1960, Brass-Knuckle Crusade; the Great Know-Nothing Conspiracy, 1820–1860 1961, Nomads and Empire Builders; Native Peoples and Cultures of South America 1962, Cyclone Carry, the Story of Carry Nation 1963, Latin America: World in Revolution 1963, Eagles of the Andes: South American Struggles for Independence 1965, War Within a War; the Confederacy Against Itself 1967, Land of the Mayas; Yesterday and Today 1968, The Great Revolt and Its Leaders: The History of Popular American Uprisings in the 1890s 1969, The Case of Leon Trotsky [Lev Davydovič Trockij]: Report of Hearings On the Charges Made Against Him in the Moscow Trails 1970, Stories Told by the Aztecs Before the Spaniards Came 1970, The Nature of Revolution 1970, Great Guerrilla Warriors 1970, Colonial Rhode Island 1973, The Incredible Incas: Yesterday and Today