Cuba and abroad, but took a particularly paternal attitude toward Cubans, treating them as if "they were a part of his own giant family". British historian Alex von Tunzelmann commented that "though ruthless, [Castro] was a patriot, a man with a profound sense that it was his mission to save the Cuban people". Political scientist Paul C. Sondrol characterized Castro as "quintessentially totalitarian in his charismatic appeal, utopian functional role and public, transformative utilisation of power". Balfour described Castro as having a "voracity for knowledge" and "elephantine memory" that allowed him to speak for hours on a variety of different subjects. His hero was Alexander the Great, whose Spanish equivalent Alejandro he adopted as his nom de guerre. Castro was a voracious reader; amongst his favourite authors were Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, William Shakespeare, and Maxim Gorky, and he named For Whom the Bell Tolls as his favourite book, committing several portions of the novel to memory and even utilizing some of its lessons as a guerrilla fighter. He enjoyed art and photography and was known as a patron of both within Cuba but was uninterested in music and disliked dancing. He was also an avid fan of cinema, particularly Soviet films. His favourite film was the five-hour long 1967 adaption of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Castro had a lifelong passion, almost obsession, with cows and, starting in 1966, with bovine genetics and breeding. State media frequently published details of his attempts to breed cows with increased milk yields. This interest reached its peak in 1982 when a cow that Fidel had bred, "Ubre Blanca", broke the Guinness World Record for producing 29 gallons of milk live on national television. She was promoted into a national celebrity and propaganda tool, and when the cow died in 1985, Granma published an official obituary for her on the front page, and the postal service issued stamps in her honour as well. Fidel Castro's religious beliefs have been a matter of some debate; he was baptized and raised as a Roman Catholic. He criticized use of the Bible to justify the oppression of women and Africans, but commented that Christianity exhibited "a group of very humane precepts" which gave the world "ethical values" and a "sense of social justice", relating, "If people call me Christian, not from the standpoint of religion but from the standpoint of social vision, I declare that I