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Top of the pile
86
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
92/100Critics
81/100Scholars
Author:
Max Hastings
Publisher:
Harper
Date:
October 18, 2022
Max Hastings turns his focus to one of the most terrifying events of the mid-twentieth century--the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.
What The Reviewers Say
Reading any account of the crisis, much less one as accessible and involving as this crafted by Hastings, always provokes a graveyard chill.
A compelling narrative..
Until recently, the disturbing truth about what actually happened 60 years ago has been hidden in often inaccessible academic studies, leaving the public to shelter in cozy ignorance. Enter Hastings, a rock of probity and good sense. He’s combined his investigative skills with his flair for storytelling to produce the most gripping narrative of the crisis I’ve yet encountered. His story unfolds, as it should, as a frightening but hopelessly addictive narrative of 13 nerve-wracking days when the world teetered above an abyss.
Hastings lays bare, with chilling clarity, the ease with which political theatre and bluster could well have escalated into a scenario of mutually assured destruction.
