Cuba Sugar King Draws Bullets, Flees Che, Corners Market in Bio

Fifty years ago this October, Ernesto “Che” Guevara summoned sugar magnate Julio Lobo to a midnight meeting in his office at Cuba’s central bank.

The revolutionary turned central banker was 32, bearded and wore battle fatigues. He signed banknotes “Che” -- Ben Bernanke, dream on -- and had a revolver slung across his desk, writes John Paul Rathbone in “The Sugar King of Havana,” an evocative history about a chronically misunderstood island.