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  1. Books
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  3. United States of America

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4.5(2)

Abyss : The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

A Times History Book of the Year 2022

From the #1 bestselling historian Max Hastings ‘the heart-stopping story of the missile crisis’ Daily Telegraph

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the most perilous event in history, when mankind faced a looming nuclear collision between the United States and Soviet Union. During those weeks, the world gazed into the abyss of potential annihilation.

Max Hastings’s graphic new history tells the story from the viewpoints of national leaders, Russian officers, Cuban peasants, American pilots and British disarmers. Max Hastings deploys his accustomed blend of eye-witness interviews, archive documents and diaries, White House tape recordings, top-down analysis, first to paint word-portraits of the Cold War experiences of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Nikita Khrushchev’s Russia and Kennedy’s America; then to describe the nail-biting Thirteen Days in which Armageddon beckoned.

Hastings began researching this book believing that he was exploring a past event from twentieth century history. He is as shocked as are millions of us around the world, to discover that the rape of Ukraine gives this narrative a hitherto unimaginable twenty-first century immediacy. We may be witnessing the onset of a new Cold War between nuclear-armed superpowers.

To contend with today’s threat, which Hastings fears will prove enduring, it is critical to understand how, sixty years ago, the world survived its last glimpse into the abyss. Only by fearing the worst, he argues, can our leaders hope to secure the survival of the planet.


Author:

  • Max Hastings

Narrator:

  • John Hopkins

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 19 h 13 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • History
  • United States of America
  • History
  • Great occurrences and events
  • History
  • Military history
  • Society and Social Sciences
  • Politics
  • Society and Social Sciences
  • Warfare

More by Max Hastings

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  1. Editor : A decade's strife with PMs, proprietors and royals while resurrecting The Daily Telegraph

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  2. Going to the Wars

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  3. Operation Biting : The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler's Radar

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  4. Operation Biting : The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler’s Radar

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  5. The Abyss : Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962

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  6. Max Hastings On War

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  7. Guerreros : Retratos desde el campo de batalla

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  8. Operation Chastise : The RAF's Most Brilliant Attack of World War II

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  9. Vietnam : An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975

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  10. Overlord

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  11. Korean War

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  • 13 books

    Max Hastings

    Max Hastings is the author of The Korean War, Overlord, and Bomber Command and the coauthor of Battle for the Falklands. Editor of The Daily Telegraph, he lives in London, England.

    Read more

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Excellent4.3 out of 5