The definitive account of a brief yet frightening period in global history.
One of the greatest living historians tackles the Cuban missile crisis.
In his long, distinguished career, Hastings has masterfully covered both world wars, the Korean War, and Vietnam. In his latest, he thoroughly explores a fraught set of circumstances that almost lead to World War III. He sets the scene with a highly illuminating description of the Cold War world in 1960. The Soviet Union, barely recovered from World War II, was no match for the wealthy U.S., but its flamboyant premier, Nikita Khrushchev had convinced the world that he commanded a massive intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal—although he didn’t. Fidel Castro’s seizure of power in Cuba in early 1959 made him popular in America for several months until he seized all American businesses and resorted to violence to maintain his position. When John F. Kennedy took office in January 1961, the purportedly covert action to overthrow Castro was underway. To his everlasting regret, Kennedy assumed that its organizers knew what they were doing. Delighted at crushing America’s Bay of Pigs invasion but certain there was more fighting to come, Castro appealed to the Soviets, who responded favorably. Aware of Russian shipments arriving in Cuba, Kennedy’s administration assumed that these contained conventional weapons until overflights photographed nuclear missile sites. Hastings does not hide his contempt for Khrushchev’s decision to send atomic weapons. Explanations exist because Khrushchev, his son, and many high-level officials wrote memoirs. All blamed him, but Khrushchev himself insisted that it was a sensible response to American missiles on his nation’s border. Early on in the crisis, almost everyone, Kennedy included, agreed to bomb strategic sites and invade, which would likely lead to war. Hastings argues that Kennedy prevented a catastrophic conflict by deciding that this was a bad idea. Instead, he ordered a blockade and sent a warning to Khrushchev, who withdrew the missiles. The author’s painfully insightful conclusion credits Kennedy with brilliant statesmanship but adds that most successors would have chosen war.
The definitive account of a brief yet frightening period in global history.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-298013-7
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist (1900–45) collected his work from WWII in two bestselling volumes, this second published in 1944, a year before Pyle was killed by a sniper’s bullet on Okinawa. In his fine introduction to this new edition, G. Kurt Piehler (History/Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) celebrates Pyle’s “dense, descriptive style” and his unusual feel for the quotidian GI experience—a personal and human side to war left out of reporting on generals and their strategies. Though Piehler’s reminder about wartime censorship seems beside the point, his biographical context—Pyle was escaping a troubled marriage—is valuable. Kirkus, at the time, noted the hoopla over Pyle (Pulitzer, hugely popular syndicated column, BOMC hype) and decided it was all worth it: “the book doesn’t let the reader down.” Pyle, of course, captures “the human qualities” of men in combat, but he also provides “an extraordinary sense of the scope of the European war fronts, the variety of services involved, the men and their officers.” Despite Piehler’s current argument that Pyle ignored much of the war (particularly the seamier stuff), Kirkus in 1944 marveled at how much he was able to cover. Back then, we thought, “here’s a book that needs no selling.” Nowadays, a firm push might be needed to renew interest in this classic of modern journalism.
Pub Date: April 26, 2001
ISBN: 0-8032-8768-2
Page Count: 513
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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