Hornblower During the Crisis (Hornblower Saga)

Book Description

Captain Hornblower, after two hard years on blockade at Brest, has relinquished the helm of the Hotspur. He has no ship, only the promise of one. Meanwhile there are battles to be fought.

This reading of HORNBLOWER DURING THE CRISIS includes two other stories, "Hornblower's Temptation" and "The Last Encounter," all published after C.S. Forester's death in 1966.

"Because Forester died before completing this novel, the reader is left with a summary sketch and his own imagination for final details of the plot. For Forester devotees, this will not detract from the essential verve and dash of Hornblower's last chase." (The Christian Science Monitor)

Customer Reviews:

A Wonderful Friendship .......2006-09-09

This is the next Hornblower chronologically, it was not the next one written. Now that the series is completed it makes sense to read it as Hornblower's career progresses in the Royal Navy.

The whole series is a pleasure to read full of action and adventure; with enough time for a little romance.

Get acquainted with one of the most popular characters in modern literature.

After reading this you will be back for more. And that is a wonderful thing.

Would've been a good novel but the best part wasn't written........2004-03-01

This novel picks up with Hornblower relinquishing command of the Hotspur and returning to London for a new command. As typical in a Forester novel, nothing ever goes as planned and action follows Hornblower on his way home from a supply ship. There are only about 150 pages of text in this story and what was missing in the story were what Hornblower did that lead to the eventual decisive Battle of Trafalgar. It was nice to see what Forester wrote anyway only because I like the genre and I like Forester's details and descriptions of being in the Service and living during that time. But this book wouldn't be good on its own.

Cleaning up Forester's Desk.......2004-02-27

Hornblower During the Crisis is apparently a couple of pieces of left over script that Forester hadn't finished when he died, and was later published. The first half deals with Hornblower's trip home to England as a passenger on a water hoy (a supply ship that brings water to ships of the line). The water how is such a dog that after several days of beating back and forth they are still where they began. When they finally do get a fair wind they are chased by a larger French brig and only by some of Hornblower's usual trickery and bravado do they turn the tables and escape. The battle is a little too unbelievable for me; it relies too much no surprise and a sleeping French crew, which I found beyond the realm of possible. Nevertheless our hero returns safely to England.

The second part of the book is another short story about how Hornblower was assigned to be some kind of spy in Spain to deliver fake messages ordering the Spanish fleet out to sea. It's more plausible, but a short story.

Despite its shortcomings, the detail of ships and sailing in the early 19th century make the Hornblower series must reading for any man who loves the sea.

good, but unfinished leaves you wanting more.......2004-02-06

like most of the reviews the book is unfinished, which I thought was unfortunate. i really love reading about HH. i find his thoughts and thought process intriguing and his outlook on others who are involved in his life. CS Forester really gives you a feel for this charactor and puts you in his mind.

"Hornblower During the Crisis" is only 117 pages. i enjoyed it and have read all of the novels up threw "Crisis". im reading in chronological order. so i was dissapointed for it to end so quick. it is your typical HH novel, he starts out sailing and then the frogs show up, HH comes up with an idea and ofcoures it works out for the better. ends up in england with some important papers from boney. he gets promoted to captain only if he goes on a spy mission he came up with, that is where the book ends. a shame, i really wanted to see HH as a spy.

"Hornblowers Temptation" - is the first short story. it comes after "Midshipmen Hornblower" although one review said it came after "Lieutentant Hornblower", the reason is because Mr.Bush is not on board and captian sawyer is still alive. good short story, i agree with some reviews that the character is not like the HH we know. he does things for his own conscious , and not for king, for county. also this mentions that they have gone to the west indies, but in "Lieutentaunt HH", he remarks to Bush how he has never seen some sort of fish which are only in the west indies. good short story, if u like HH series then you will like this, although we are not use to this softer side of Horry.

"The Last Encounter" - this makes no sense with the HH books. his wifes is named Barbara, who he loves and can't keep his eyes off of, his only child is named Richard and he likes wine or "port" as they call it. never the less is was an ok read. i think forester wrote this just for fun. the story is about a man who comes to the door and says he someone famous and dead. HH is like whatever, but helps him anyway. not bad, i didn't really like it because it didn't hold true to Maria and his 2 kids.

this is a decent book, i wish it was finished, it really leaves you dangling. the only regret is the price $15, which are the prices for completed books. we should pay half this since we are getting half a story.

The last book in the series..........2004-01-06

Or is it? The incomplete story, 'Hornblower During The Crisis' seems to be set just after 'Hornblower And The Hotspur'. The story was never finished and the ONE page of notes at the end DO tell you how the story turns out but doesn't have much in the way of details. It would of been nice to see a dozen pages or so of the author's notes.
The next two stories, 'Hornblower's Temptation'(which seems to be set after 'Lieutenant Hornblower') and 'The Last Encounter', which is the very last tale about him, are both short but complete. They show us a very interesting view of Hornblower's inner thought process when he was young and when he gets old.
So in a way it does end the series, but also shows him during earlier periods of his life.

Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Average customer rating:

first-hand-account, fast-paced, fascinating
A short but complete walkthrough
Some insight, some disappointment
Thirteen Days : A Review
On the Brink of Nuclear War

Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Robert F. Kennedy
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Nonfiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (2nd Edition)
The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)
Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations from 1897
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
Thirteen Days (Infinifilm Edition)

ASIN: 0393318346

Book Description

The unique, gripping account of the perilous showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the thirteen days in October 1962 when the United States confronted the Soviet Union over its installation of missiles in Cuba, few people shared the behind-the-scenes story as it is told here by the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In a clear and simple record, he describes the personalities involved in the crisis, with particular attention to the actions and attitudes of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. He describes the daily, even hourly, exchanges between Russian representatives and American. In firsthand immediacy we see the frightening responsibility of two great nations holding the fate of the world in their hands.

Customer Reviews:

first-hand-account, fast-paced, fascinating .......2007-09-12

Read up on one of the most terrifying moments in history, the near destruction of the world by nuclear holocaust. This quick read takes you inside the White House where policy makers decided how best to react to the Soviet Union's establishing a nuclear missile base on the island of Cuba. This is a first-hand-account, fast-paced, fascinating page-turner of a history book.

A short but complete walkthrough.......2007-03-23

I picked this book up as research for a speech I gave, and found I didn't have to look much further for an understanding of the events. RFK's account--from any source--is very accurate and detailed. It goes right along with the movie "13 days" but, as any book would, offers a much more accurate portrayal of the events. If you do get this book (which I highly recommend for anyone interested in the Cuban Missile Crisis, or history for that matter), you should also look in to the Havana Conference, which really shines some light on the full gravity of the situation.

Some insight, some disappointment.......2005-10-31

I was looking forward to reading this book on what I thought would be a keen insider's look at the Cuban missile crisis, and was somewhat disappointed. I realize that RFK was not able to complete the text, and perhaps that is reflected in it's length (100 pages of narrative). A large part of the printed material, about 1/3, is made up of supporting documents. I had hoped for more detail about the minute-to-minute events of those 13 days. The strength of the book is its undeniably interesting topic and author. There was insight to the crisis that I had not previously known, and reading it here was interesting and informative. For a mid-1900's buff, this might be one piece of a collection and its uniqueness may prove worthwhile. This is the first book I read on the Cuban missile crisis, and I am left wanting a lot more.

Thirteen Days : A Review.......2005-08-02

This is a riveting firsthand account of a period of intense confrontation between 2 superpowers that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. It is a short, intense read followed by additional material from other authors that rounds out the edges of the story. This book clearly shows how good President Kennedy was a balancing the military option with diplomacy to save us from nuclear war. It is hard to imagine how this could have beeen handled better by any other President.

On the Brink of Nuclear War.......2005-05-21

Thirteen Days recounts the days that the United States seemed to be on the brink of a nuclear war. The author Robert F. Kennedy chronicled his role in the think-tank that steared the United States out of this crisis in the book. It is a tragedy that the book was never truly completed as Kennedy intended to add a section that questioned the ethics of war and nuclear war. It is a shame that the world was robbed of the view point of his scholarly mind.

In the era of the cable news networks , much of the information in this book seems thin. There is so much Kennedy could have elaborated on in this book. In its time, the book gave Americans their deepest look into the Kennedy White House. Many other books have more indepth accounts of the Cuban Missle Crisis, but none have the personal touch of a Kennedy. Learning from the disaster caused by groupthink that caused the failure of the Bay of Pigs, President Kennedy surrounded himself with a diverse group that was willing to debate all sides of the issue. All ideas were encouraged, but only one was selected. Seeing multiple view points allowed them to explore all the aspects of the issue, including how the Soviets might react/feel. Great thinkers traditionally explore topics in very open forums such as this. There is no narrow minded partisanism here, just a quest for peace. Though slight, this is a great account of one of the finest hours in the Kennedy administration.

Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (SPEP)

Average customer rating:

The Return to Things Themselves
Husserl's last introduction
. . . the Spirit alone is immortal.

Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (SPEP)
Edmund Husserl
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Modern | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology
Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl Collected Works)
Logical Investigations (International Library of Philosophy)
Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge Classics)
Logical Investigations (International Library of Philosophy)

ASIN: 081010458X

Customer Reviews:

The Return to Things Themselves.......2007-04-25

Husserl is a tremendous apologist of "philosophy as rigorous science." This volume ("The Crisis") serves as the philosopher's clearest and most distinct exposition of the problems that beset modern Civilization and that still prevent many of us from appreciating an understanding of reality unmediated by empiricist and historicist biases. Most succinctly, Husserl has shown how and why it is possible for practical judgment to remain unbiased, and for theoretical/pure reason to remain in touch with life.

Husserl has helped later generations re-discover a rational/classical alternative to both modern reason and modern irrationalism. With Husserl, the critique of modernity points to a reason above "the machine." That is why Husserl rejected the anti-rationalist disposition displayed by his brilliant student, Martin Heidegger, whose inconclusive turn to pre-Socratic Wisdom arguably suffered from an inadequate understanding of the Socratic/"mediating/moderating" Quest for wisdom.

With Husserl, two options were disclosed to public attention: 1) a "new [atheistic, nihilistic] thinking" finding its core representation in Heideggerian "Existentialism"; 2) Classical (pre-Cartesian, non-Machiavellian) Rationalism, or "rational life" not subject to the Cartesian tendency to decay into the historicization and mechanization of reason/philosophy.

Most scholars today have found a way to dilute "Existentialism" to a degree that makes it possible to place "Existentialism" at the service of the powers that be (conformism). Among the very few who prefer to seek out a classical, non-historicist understanding of reason and history, we find two of Husserl's students--Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss. The first helped expose the essential link between Husserl's teachings and classical Socratic/Platonic philosophy; the second, inaugurated an exceptional return OF classical political rationalism--of a School of Philosophy, in the Platonic sense--at a time when the "temple" of science (the Academy) had become a sea of suspicion-breeding sophisticated ideologies.

It need not surprise the disinterested bystander that Strauss has henceforth become target of many an ideological reprisal. What is perhaps most "disturbing" about Strauss is that he makes it extremely difficult to critique rationalists such as Husserl for their (unremarkable?) inadequacies. That is because with Strauss such a critique presupposes access to a degree of speculative reason that is higher, and NOT lower, than the one exemplified by Husserl: one must understand an author as clearly and distinctly as he understood himself, BEFORE claiming to understand him "better."

Husserl's last introduction.......2005-10-09

It is somewhat ironic that Phenomenology, as a term or as a philosophical school, has yet to really reach the popular consciousness, given that phenomenology is in many respects a study of consciousness and how reality impacts consciousness. Phenomenology in the most formal sense of being a school of philosophy is largely traced to Franz Brentano (1838-1917) and Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). Husserl's great work at the turn of the last century, Logical Investigations, set the stage for the development of phenomenology as a way of seeing, a descriptive study with roots in empiricism going back to inspiration from Aristotelian ideas. This is a key word - description. Rather than being a set of constructs and principles typical of previous philosophical systems, Phenomenology attempts to describe reality fully as reality is presented to our senses.

Phenomenology is different from scientific study in that it does not pretend toward a universal truth or experience unmediated through our subjectivity (a principle modern science seems to be incorporating more and more). Editor Dermot Moran has a solid introduction to the subject, including distinctions of different kinds of study, some of the personalities involved in the development of phenomenology, and the current state of the discipline.

This book by Husserl is one written late in his career. The Nazi party was well on its way to taking complete power in Germany, and other forces of despair were very present in the Western culture. Husserl's protege Heidegger had gone from phenomenology to existentialism, a philosophical framework that Husserl distrusted, but understood as completely in keeping with the overall crisis of meaning and purpose that he saw taking root in society at its very core.

Husserl's work from 1900 forward was always involved in recasting and adapting phenomenology to the current culture; each of his books in that time had as a title or subtitle 'An Introduction to Phenomenology', and this particular text was no different. Often overlooked in this text's presentation is that it was actually unfinished at Husserl's death, and had once again taken phenomenology in new directions. Perhaps the most radical departure of this version of phenomenology to Husserl's earlier constructs is the incorporation of psychological ideas.

Husserl's concern is to overcome the lack of meaning found in science and technology, the lack of telos and the lack of an inherent moral structure. Husserl traces the history of ideas and search for meaning in intellectual enterprise, and ends with a sense of a 'life-world' that draws closer to the aims of existentialism than he had ever done before.

This is a fascinating text.

. . . the Spirit alone is immortal........1998-07-31

Written at the end of his career and on the eve of the Holocaust, the Crisis stands, I believe, as one of the greatest one volume educations in print today. Unlike his more "technical" works which rigorously deal with phenomenology in itself, the Crisis is more of a look at the need for phenomenology and phenomenological psychology in modern humanity's life. Looking at the history of science and philosophy, Husserl traces the development and "success" of scientism and materialism. In doing so phenomenologically, Husserl makes a very strong case for the need of phenomenology in order to overcome the lifelessness of materialism and inaugurate a "heroism of reason" and humanism. Anyone interested in philosophy, science, sociology, civil rights, etc. I urge to read this book actively and critically. For non-specialists and people who aren't "scholars" of any kind or degree may find the language a bit dense or heavy at times, but ! . . . it's good for you. The volume also features appendices which include the classic Vienna Lecture as well as other essays and lectures. The Crisis is a classic and brilliant look into science, philosophy and society which, unlike a lot of theory today, offers a cohesive system grounded in humanism, to wit, Husserlian phenomenology. Please read this book.

The Culture of Property: The Crisis of Liberalism in Modern Britain

Average customer rating:

The Culture of Property: The Crisis of Liberalism in Modern Britain
Jordanna Bailkin
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Arts & Photography | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Irish Art Of Controversy
A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884-1926
Gandhi: 'Hind Swaraj' and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics)

ASIN: 0226035506

Book Description

What kind of property is art? Is it property at all? Jordanna Bailkin's The Culture of Property offers a new historical response to these questions, examining ownership disputes over art objects and artifacts during the crisis of liberalism in the United Kingdom. From the 1870s to the 1920s, Britons fought over prized objects from ancient gold ornaments dug up in an Irish field to a portrait of the Duchess of Milan at the National Gallery in London. They fought to keep these objects in Britain, to repatriate them to their points of origin, and even to destroy them altogether. Bailkin explores these disputes in order to investigate the vexed status of property within modern British politics as well as the often surprising origins of ongoing institutional practices. Bailkin's detailed account of these struggles illuminates the relationship between property and citizenship, which has constituted the heart of liberal politics as well as its greatest weakness.

Drawing on court transcripts, gallery archives, exhibition reviews, private correspondence—and a striking series of cartoons and photographs—The Culture of Property traverses the history of gender, material culture, urban life, colonialism, Irish and Scottish nationalism, and British citizenship. This fascinating book challenges recent scholarship in museum studies in light of ongoing culture wars. It should be required reading for cultural policy makers, museum professionals, and anyone interested in the history of art and Britain.

Average customer rating:

(RAW Rating: 4.5) - What is happening to black men?
Why Are So Many Black Men In Prison? A Comprehensive Account Of How And Why The Prison Industry Has Become A Predatory Entity In
A Must Read
Why are so many Black Men in Prison?
Why are so many blacks in prison?

Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?
Demico Boothe
Manufacturer: Xlibris Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Penology | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

War on Drugs | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Kill Them Before They Grow: The Misdiagnosis of African American Boys in America's Classrooms
The State of Black America 2007: Portrait of the Black Male
Visions for Black Men
Motivating and Preparing Black Youth for Success
The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture

ASIN: 1425713971

Customer Reviews:

(RAW Rating: 4.5) - What is happening to black men?.......2007-08-04

Demico Boothe has explored the reasons so many black men are indeed in prison in, WHY ARE SO MANY BLACK MEN IN PRISON? He begins with his own story of a shaky upbringing and his subsequent dabbling in drug dealing. He was caught with a few grams of crack cocaine but because it was the dreaded crack, he was given 10 years in prison. When he left prison after serving his time, he was actually railroaded back into prison by a crooked justice system. He delves deeply into our justice system and the motives behind all the new prisons that are being built. He gives succinct and reasonable views of exactly what is happening now in the United States and how the past has played a role in the present. He uses persuasive statistics regarding the number of black men in prison as compared to the number of white men who are incarcerated.

Demico Boothe has done an excellent job of researching his subject and it is a plus, if unfortunate for him, that he has actually experienced first hand what he's talking about. I knew I was hearing the real story rather than just statistics from an intellectual who had no real idea of what the prison system is really like. I would have liked for Boothe to search a little deeper into the Haiti, Aristide and USA question, maybe even reading Randall Robinson's take on the situation, and then he might see it a bit differently. Otherwise, it is a good book and one every one in America should read. We indeed, have a crisis going on.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Why Are So Many Black Men In Prison? A Comprehensive Account Of How And Why The Prison Industry Has Become A Predatory Entity In.......2007-06-09

The book was very interesting. I learned soooo much about the government and the prison industry. I did some searching independantly to check on the things reported in the book and they are very true. Great Read!! Buy the book.

A Must Read.......2007-05-25

Mr. Demico's book is a must-read for anyone concerned about young African American men. Although I did not agree with every conclusion he reached, Demico's main premises are convincing. As a white woman who teaches mainly students of color, I am always impressed, and often in awe, of those young men who reach college with so much going against them. Demico's books lays bare not only the horrible inequalities of our society, but also the racist attitudes of our political system - - Democrats, Republicans, and most everyone in between.

Why are so many Black Men in Prison?.......2007-05-13

I is a well put together book. He really goes into a lot of detail of how our society is really set up.

Why are so many blacks in prison?.......2007-05-12

I found this book very interesting. As a white devil myself, I had no idea that I was responsible for forcing blacks into committing crimes and then subsequently clogging up the whole "Prison Industrial Complex"(tm). I will try to stop causing this, as I am sure it is creating a LOT of trouble for everyone! Sorry!

It is probably also my fault that young black men dressed in XXXXL clothes overtly threaten me and my family members routinely. Can anyone tell me what I should do to make this not happen?

I imagine it's also my fault that black on white violent crime is WAY higher than white on black violent crime, even though blacks constitute about 12.5% of the population, and whites are about 70%. But since it is impossible for a black to commit a hate crime according to our criminal justice system (since blacks are not under any circumstances racist), statistically, there are more white on black hate crimes. Boothe notes a statistic regarding hate crimes, but he skips the one about interracial violence in general.

In sum, Boothe notes that just about everything blacks do is actually MY fault, because my skin is white. Boothe, I've got a word for you.

Introspection.

One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964

Average customer rating:

Most Detailed account of Cuban-Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis' Origins, Events, and Decisions
Very fine book on the most dangerous event of the Cold War
Simply a great book
Indepth account of a part of history that could be repeated

One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964
Aleksandr Fursenko , and Timothy J. Naftali
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Krushchev
The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Concise Edition
The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)
We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (A Council on Foreign Relations Book)
Khrushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary

ASIN: 0393317900

Amazon.com

The Berlin Wall has been rubble for a decade and the memories of the cold war are growing dim. And yet no one is ever likely to forget the Cuban Missile crisis of October 1962, when the world stood on the brink of full-scale nuclear war as the Soviet Union and America locked horns off the coast of Florida. The Soviet navy set sail for Cuba loaded with nuclear warheads for their newly constructed missile bases, precipitating the crisis. After 10 days of high tension, the Soviet Union backed down and the warheads were sent back home. War was averted, but up until now, no one has ever been too certain just how close the world came to catastrophe. Kennedy was assassinated long before he could write his memoirs, Castro's lips are sealed, and the Soviet archives were a closed book.

Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali have taken advantage of recent unrestricted access to Soviet records and performed painstaking detective work to fill the gaps in the historical record. Some of the tension of the narrative is lost, because we know the outcome; even so, they give penetrating insights as they reconstruct the drama step by step. We learn that the Kremlin did seriously consider launching a nuclear attack on the U.S.: the appropriate orders were discussed and Khrushchev spent the night of October 22 in his office so he could be on hand to cable his authorization. Some of the most interesting facts to emerge, however, are those concerning John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert. JFK had always previously been portrayed as something of a parochial gung-ho type, but this, it emerges, was merely a public persona designed to appease the Pentagon hawks. At the same time JFK was talking about a Cuban invasion, he and his brother were engaging in a more secret policy of appeasement through the Soviet ambassador. Fortunately for all of us, diplomacy won the day. In recent years, JFK has been somewhat discredited as a leader for his unpleasant sexual carryings-on and corruption. It may just be that this view is as incomplete as his portrayal as the saintly "King of Camelot". If so, One Hell of a Gamble could be the first stage in his partial rehabilitation. --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk

Book Description

Based on classified Soviet archives, including the files of Nikita Khrushchev and the KGB, "One Hell of a Gamble" offers a riveting play-by-play history of the Cuban missile crisis from American and Soviet perspectives simultaneously. No other book offers this inside look at the strategies of the Soviet leadership. John F. Kennedy did not live to write his memoirs; Fidel Castro will not reveal what he knows; and the records of the Soviet Union have long been sealed from public view: Of the most frightening episode of the Cold War--the Cuban Missile Crisis--we have had an incomplete picture. When did Castro embrace the Soviet Union? What proposals were put before the Kremlin through Kennedy's back-channel diplomacy? How close did we come to nuclear war? These questions have now been answered for the first time. This important and controversial book draws the missing half of the story from secret Soviet archives revealed exclusively by the authors, including the files of Nikita Khrushchev and his leadership circle. Contained in these remarkable documents are the details of over forty secret meetings between Robert Kennedy and his Soviet contact, records of Castro's first solicitation of Soviet favor, and the plans, suspicions, and strategies of Khrushchev. This unique research opportunity has allowed the authors to tell the complete, fascinating, and terrifying story of the most dangerous days of the last half-century.

Customer Reviews:

Most Detailed account of Cuban-Missile Crisis.......2006-10-16

Two Harvard scholars, Russian Historian Aleksandr Fursenko and American Historian Timothy Nafatali expose the missing gaps to one of the Cold War's most pivotal episodes - the Cuban Missile Crisis. In their 1998 book One Hell of a Gamble, they convincingly argue that the Post-WWII episode was an international dilemma. Contending that "no one person or government created the mix of interest, power, and fear that nearly exploded in 1962," the authors develop a sound narrative that illuminates the finer details of the crisis. They succeed marvelously, with minor exceptions, at explaining the Soviet and American nuances of the dramatic history involved in the early 60's. Beginning with the rise of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and ending with Khrushchev's demise, the work chronicles the delicate balance of power that tilted back and forth between the superpowers and Cuba.

The authors masterfully handle Soviet archives, and American sources, but the authors somewhat clumsily rifle through Cuban historiography. The opening chapters, however, do correctly portray Castro's budding relationship with the Soviet Union, and his diminishing alliance with the United States. And the failed Bay of Pigs operation coupled with Kennedy's campaign promise to "not be soft" on Cuba, did indeed solidify Castro's motivation to ally with the Soviets. In contrast, one of the chief frailties of the work lies with the somewhat unclear portrayal of Castro's image and relationship with key confidants. Granted, the authors lacked access to Cuban archives, but the absence of corroboration leaves room for question. For instance, the authors portray Castro as having a "privileged background" in his early years and offer little evidence to substantiate this claim. This description of Castro, however, contradicts most scholarship on the dictator's earlier years. Ernesto Betancourt, Washington Representative to Castro in the late 50's, noted that Castro was "one of the illegitimate children of the house servant sired by his father." Betancourt further noted that Castro was embarrassed about his childhood and disillusioned by not being allowed to utilize the "facilities established for American staffers at the United Fruit Club." The club, which in part was established by the profits of his father's sugar plantation, created a wedge of indifference between the young Castro and the Americans. According to Betancourt, the aforementioned facts led to the complex that feeds Castro's "inferiority against the Cuban upper classes . . . [and] . . . the United States in general." The author's portrayal of Castro's image as a young man was incomplete and somewhat misleading. With a minor lapse in scholarship, the authors quickly change academic gears and advance a sound narrative on the Soviet historiography of the crisis.

Utilizing a trove of recently accessible Soviet archives, the Harvard scholars introduce new behind- the- scene details of how the crisis unfolded. The Soviets, of course, capitalized on America's failed overthrow of Cuba. Khrushchev estimated that the deployment of nuclear warheads ninety miles from America's coastline would tip the strategic nuclear balance in the Soviet's favor and would support the Cuban revolution. Moreover, he projected that the deployment of warheads could be kept secret until it was too late for the U.S. to act. This, of course, was an error in judgment - as U-2 reconnaissance planes quickly determined the presence of missiles in Cuba. Formerly, scholars ascribed to the belief that hard-liners in the Kremlin forced, or highly encouraged, Khrushchev to place Soviet warheads on the island nation. However, the evidence presented by the authors discounts this premise - and strongly suggests that Khrushchev's acted alone in this decision.

After the American discovery of warheads in Cuba in October of 1962, the two superpowers engaged in active diplomatic negotiations. In previous histories of the crisis, it was thought that only official and public channels were utilized for communications between the countries. Utilizing a partially transcribed collection of the Kennedy ExCom (Executive Committee) tapes, we learn for the first time about a small network of back channel communications - which proved to be vital in the continuing negotiations for peaceful resolution to the crisis. For instance, Aleksandr Alekseev, the Soviet Ambassador to Havana, provided an informal communication channel between the Cubans and Soviets. Similarly, Georgi Bolshakov a Soviet Intelligence officer, relayed messages between the Soviets and Americans via Robert Kennedy and American journalist Frank Holeman.

Ironically, the authors reveal that Kennedy provided private concessions to the Kremlin via Bolshakov during the critical thirteen days of the crisis. Most importantly, Kennedy agreed to remove the American Jupiter missiles from Turkey - a revelation that was not publicized to the media.

Interestingly, only bilateral sources, namely known intelligence officers and journalists, were noted in this work. The authors, however, fail to mention the GRU spy, Oleg Penkovsky, who allegedly provided the CIA with detailed information on the Soviet missile capabilities and locations at the time. In The Spy Who Saved the World, Penkovsky was given credit for relaying crucial intelligence reports to the Kennedy Administration, which allegedly contributed to his decision for a quarantine of the Soviet naval fleet. It remains unclear why Fursenko and Naftali omitted this fact; perhaps they had no detailed evidence that the U.S had legitimate clandestine sources. Of course, de-classified intelligence archives from both the CIA and KGB may have been sanitized; and therefore, may have limited the author's ability to understand and synthesize intelligence sources. Whatever the case, the Penkovsky exclusion limits the intelligence scholarship of the missile crisis. One question the authors may have raised, was whether Kennedy fully utilized intelligence provided by unilateral human sources, such as Penkovsky, during the crisis?

Thankfully for mankind, the careful deliberations between Kennedy and Khrushchev resulted in a peaceful compromise that averted a thermo-nuclear war. The authors concluded that after the missile crisis "Khrushchev and Kennedy were now willing to take risks for better relations." Their efforts established a détente between the two superpowers - but one that was brief. Unfortunately, the short-lived prospect faded after the November 1963 Kennedy assassination and the October 1964 coup that removed Khrushchev from power.
One hell of a Gamble is a tremendously detailed work that exceeds previous scholarship on the post-WWII crisis. The authors offer compelling evidence that the crisis came closer to spinning out of control than once thought. We discover that Castro, Khrushchev, and Kennedy were "ultimately driven by a sense of what was best for themselves, and for their people." Moreover, the authors convincingly demonstrate that Cuba became the pivotal pawn in the Cold War chess match between the Soviets and the Americans. So persuasive was their story, that film director Ronald Donaldson used the context of their work for the film Thirteen Days - which depicted the crucial two weeks of the missile crises. Although an unexceptional account of the crisis on the American and Cuban fronts, the authors do offer an authoritative interpretation on Soviet historiography during the 1962 crisis. Cold War scholars should pay careful attention to this work, which highlights some of the missing details of an especially tense period during the Cold War.

The Cuban Missile Crisis' Origins, Events, and Decisions.......2005-09-19

In 1958, Fidel Castro and his band of guerillas successfully overthrew the despised Batista regime in Cuba. At the time, Castro was a question mark for US policymakers. He actually was invited to visit the US and gave a speech at Harvard. However, his domestic socialist reforms caused consternation in Washington, while the communist affiliations of his leading supporters (e.g. his brother, Raul, and Che Guevara) created outright alarm. The authors infer that in 1958 Castro could have gone either way, i.e. communist or non-communist. However, Washington's thinly veiled distrust and eventual outright hostility against him supposedly pushed him into seeking Soviet support.

The book then continues, following Castro's ascension to power, his increasing fear of US-backed invasion, and his greater and greater demands for increased Soviet protection. Surpisingly, the Soviets initially had as little interest in Castro's Cuba as Washington. However, the Cold War was on, and Kruschev was eager to project Soviet influence at the expense of Mao's communist China. And what better way to assert Soviet prestige than by establishing a Soviet communist beachhead just off America's shores.

As the US stepped up its belated and ineffectual covert operations aimed at destabilizing and eventually toppling the Castro regime, Castro sought ever more Soviet economic, and especially military, assistance. One of the Soviet's first major successes was in implementing the block surveillance program. Arms shipments became greater, more frequent, and more obvious. However, Soviet-Castro relations became endangered by one of Castro's rebellious communist lieutenants, and the Soviets were stymied by their deficiency in ICBMs. Thus, Kruschev made the fateful and audacious decision to deploy Soviet medium and intermediate range nuclear missiles and bombers in Cuba.

Much of the rest of the story is well-known. American U2 reconnaisance flights over Cuba reveal the construction of Soviet missile and bomber bases. Kennedy goes on national TV to alert the US public to the crisis and gain support for potential military action. Behind the scenes, a deal is desperately sought to end the crisis. Ultimately, Kruschev publicly agrees to remove nukes from Cuba, while Kennedy privately agrees to reciprocate in removing American missiles from Turkey.

The book reveals a great deal about how strongly individual personalities affect history and national leadership. It also demonstrates how completely inept and unrealistic the CIA's operations were in Cuba. There were a few times during Castro's rise to power that the US had a chance of courting him; however, their own ignorance of Cuba's internal politics assured they would never capitalize on it. From my standpoint, the entire crisis could have been easily avoided by resolute leadership in the White House - either make Castro an ally, oust him when he was still weak, or guarantee that Cuba will not be military threatened by the US. The fault lies with both Eisenhower and Kennedy for their weak and vacillating policies towards Castro.

Very fine book on the most dangerous event of the Cold War.......2004-05-05

If you are interested in finding out what the Cuban Missile Crisis was actually about and how it was conducted and resolved, this is a fantastic book. Not only do we get the context of what went on during the Eisenhower administration when Castro came to power, but we get the context of what was going on in the Soviet Union as well.

I did not know that Raul Castro was the committed communist who advocated closer ties with the USSR. That Fidel was anti-US was always clear, but it was most interesting to read about how the connection between Cuba and the USSR developed and its limitations because of Fidel's undisciplined and independent nature.

The back-channel diplomacy was also very interesting to read about and why we didn't learn about the Jupiter missile removal from Turkey until much later was another story I wanted to understand. For me, the most useful things I learned were the lurching and stumbling nature of the way the USSR and the US played off of and against each other. Not only were both sides trying to balance the other side, each side was also trying to be provocative as well.

The book also notes that the Soviets saw the Kennedy assassination as the work of a far right wing conspiracy led by H.L. Hunt, although they had no real evidence but the word of journalist Paul Ward. They refused to believe that the President's security services could have allowed a lone madman to shoot the President (as was actually the case).

The book ends with a brief discussion of coup that removed Khrushchev and put Brezhnev in power.

The book is written very well and has a rich supply of notes and documentation backing up the story the authors report. I think it is a fascination and important book from the most dangerous period in the Cold War.

Simply a great book.......2004-04-30

I used this book as a text book for a class on the Cuban Missle Crisis. I recommend this for more than just a textbook. It was a pleasure to read, as it is written in more of a narrative way than a history book.

Indepth account of a part of history that could be repeated.......2003-07-25

Using declassified documents from the CIA and KGB, as well as other sources, this excellent book provides amazing insight into what was going on in the heads of the leaders of three nations as well as their subordinates, and provides a very clear picture of what happened, why it happened, who caused it to happen, and what happened afterward.

The book also gives a clear picture of what could have happened as a result of faulty intelligence and overconfidence .. something to think about given today's world climate as well.

Actually, "One Hell of a Gamble" really doesn't dwell on the Cuban Missile Crisis itself, but gives tremendous, detailed political and military background on the years leading up to CMC .. and the repercussions afterward, covering the entire period from 1958-1964. It is looking at this in the full context of those times, that the book delivers a rich and powerful read.

God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis
Average customer rating:

Uneven, but still Excellent

God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis
Philip Jenkins
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Divination | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
History | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
History | Islam | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Religion & Spirituality Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity

Europe: Today and Tomorrow

Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad

The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative

ASIN: 019531395X

Book Description

What does the future hold for European Christianity? Is the Christian church doomed to collapse under the weight of globalization, Western secularism, and a flood of Muslim immigrants? Is Europe, in short, on the brink of becoming "Eurabia"? Though many pundits are loudly predicting just such a scenario, Philip Jenkins reveals the flaws in these arguments in God's Continent and offers a much more measured assessment of Europe's religious future. While frankly acknowledging current tensions, Jenkins shows, for instance, that the overheated rhetoric about a Muslim-dominated Europe is based on politically convenient myths: that Europe is being imperiled by floods of Muslim immigrants, exploding Muslim birth-rates, and the demise of European Christianity. He points out that by no means are Muslims the only new immigrants in Europe. Christians from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe are also pouring into the Western countries, and bringing with them a vibrant and enthusiastic faith that is helping to transform the face of European Christianity. Jenkins agrees that both Christianity and Islam face real difficulties in surviving within Europe's secular culture. But instead of fading away, both have adapted, and are adapting. Yes, the churches are in decline, but there are also clear indications that Christian loyalty and devotion survive, even as institutions crumble. Jenkins sees encouraging signs of continuing Christian devotion in Europe, especially in pilgrimages that attract millions--more in fact than in bygone "ages of faith." The third book in an acclaimed trilogy that includes The Next Christendom and The New Faces of Christianity, God's Continent offers a realistic and historically grounded appraisal of the future of Christianity in a rapidly changing Europe.

Customer Reviews:

Uneven, but still Excellent.......2007-06-29

The first half of the book, on the state of Christianity in Europe, is outstanding. It contains a great deal of important and significant information that I have not seen reported anywhere else, indicating that Christianity is not quite so moribund in Europe as is commonly reported.

The second half of the book, on Islam in Europe, is uneven. Jenkins begins with a number of generalizations to the effect that the common stories of the threat of Islam in Europe are overblown and unwarranted. But then he spends the rest of the book giving extensive detail and analysis to the effect that Islam is indeed a grave threat to European culture and Western security. It's an odd disconnect.

In all, an excellent book and well worth the read.

Europe in Crisis, 1598-1648 (Blackwell Classic Histories of Europe)

Average customer rating:

Europe in Crisis, 1598-1648 (Blackwell Classic Histories of Europe)
Geoffrey Parker
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Revolutionary | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

17th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Fractured Europe, 1600-1721 (Blackwell History of Europe)
Europe Unfolding, 1648-1688 (Blackwell Classic Histories of Europe)
Revolutionary Europe, 1783-1815 (Blackwell Classic Histories of Europe)
Renaissance Europe: 1480-1520 (Blackwell Classic Histories of Europe)
Europe in the Sixteenth Century (Blackwell History of Europe)

ASIN: 0631220283

Book Description

In the new edition of this classic book, Geoffrey Parker draws on material from all over Europe to provide an authoritative and exciting account of the eventful first half of the seventeenth century. The continent enjoyed scarcely a year of peace during this period. Instead revolution, civil war and complex international conflicts brought many states to the edge of collapse in the 1640s.Professor Parker examines three crucial conflicts: the desperate struggle of the Habsburgs with France and the Dutch Republic; the rivalry of Sweden, Denmark, Russia and Poland for control of the Baltic, and the confrontation between the Austrian Habsburgs and their subjects which escalated into the Thirty Years' War. He also illuminates the leading social, economic and intellectual developments of the period.The new edition has been revised throughout and includes an updated bibliography.

High Noon in the Cold War: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Average customer rating:

This book is very well done.
very informative
Highly recommended!
SHOULD BE READ BY ALL PEOPLE WHO ASSUME THEY KNOW IT ALL -

High Noon in the Cold War: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Max Frankel
Manufacturer: Presidio Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Nonfiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)
One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Averting 'The Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)
The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Concise Edition

ASIN: 0345465059
Release Date: 2004-09-28

Book Description

One of the giants of American journalism now re-creates an unforgettable time–in which the whole world feared extinction. High Noon in the Cold War captures the Cuban Missile Crisis in a new light, from inside the hearts and minds of the famous men who provoked and, in the nick of time, resolved the confrontation.

Using his personal memories of covering the conflict, and gathering evidence from recent records and new scholarship and testimony, Max Frankel corrects widely held misconceptions about the game of “nuclear chicken” played by John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962, when Soviet missiles were secretly planted in Cuba and aimed at the United States.

High Noon in the Cold War portrays an embattled young American presidentnot jaunty and callow as widely believed, but increasingly calm and statesmanlikeand a Russian ruler who was not only a “wily old peasant” but an insecure belligerent desperate to achieve credibility. Here, too, are forgotten heroes like John McCone, the conservative Republican CIA head whose intuition made him a crucial figure in White House debates.

In detailing the disastrous miscalculations of the two superpowers (the U.S. thought the Soviets would never deploy missiles to Cuba; the Soviets thought the U.S. would have to acquiesce) and how Kennedy and Khrushchev beat back hotheads in their own councils, this fascinating book re-creates the whole story of the scariest encounter of the Cold War, as told by a master reporter.

Download Description

One of the giants of American journalism now re-creates an unforgettable time—in which the whole world feared extinction. High Noon in the Cold War captures the Cuban Missile Crisis in a new light, from inside the hearts and minds of the famous men who provoked and, in the nick of time, resolved the confrontation.

Using his personal memories of covering the conflict, and gathering evidence from recent records and new scholarship and testimony, Max Frankel corrects widely held misconceptions about the game of “nuclear chicken” played by John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962, when Soviet missiles were secretly planted in Cuba and aimed at the United States.

High Noon in the Cold War portrays an embattled young American presidentnot jaunty and callow as widely believed, but increasingly calm and statesmanlike and a Russian ruler who was not only a “wily old peasant” but an insecure belligerent desperate to achieve credibility. Here, too, are forgotten heroes like John McCone, the conservative Republican CIA head whose intuition made him a crucial figure in White House debates.

In detailing the disastrous miscalculations of the two superpowers (the U.S. thought the Soviets would never deploy missiles to Cuba; the Soviets thought the U.S. would have to acquiesce) and how Kennedy and Khrushchev beat back hotheads in their own councils, this fascinating book re-creates the whole story of the scariest encounter of the Cold War, as told by a master reporter.

Customer Reviews:

This book is very well done........2007-03-12

I really enjoyed this book. It is an easy read and the author has done a great job in his research. I thought the perspective he presented about what it was about the 2 leaders personally that allowed this situation to occur was very interesting. I also enjoyed the lack of bias. The situation was presented as neutral as possible I believe.

very informative.......2006-02-23

This book is very informative on the Cuban Missile Crisis. The author gives great prespective on the mindsets of the leaders of both Soviet Russia and America. I recommend this book.

Highly recommended!.......2005-12-21

Most Americans know the Hollywood mythology of the Cuban missile crisis. Our collective assessment of the significance of this national security crisis, the participants and the process, has been largely shaped by emotion, fantasy and politics. Max Frankel in his remarkable new book, High Noon in the Cold War, has changed all that.

Frankel shares the real story of this critical series of events like an old friend sitting with us in front of a flickering fire on a crisp fall evening. Gracefully he enlightens and fascinates with well-crafted portraits of John F. Kennedy, his close advisors, those in the periphery at the Pentagon and in the Congress, and their counterparts in Moscow and Havana. High Noon presents the story without the bluster and self-confidence of history written by the winners, and instead allows us into the hearts and minds of the key decision-makers and their world that autumn of 1962.

John F. Kennedy, privately pain-wracked and publicly politically assaulted for his youth and a lack of seriousness in 1962, played this game of global chess, in part by doing what one might believe any president would do. He consulted with a variety of advisors, trusted and some less trusted, and he attempted to more deeply understand what Khrushchev's first surprising call of "Check!" required of America. Frankel does a wonderful job of putting the reader inside the pressure cooker of the Executive Committee as well as insightfully portraying the extensive series of possible moves weighed minute by minute by John Kennedy himself.

The deliberation and debate in both Washington and Moscow, after false starts and misunderstood and mixed messages resulted in the American declaration of a Cuban blockade-lite, described as a quarantine, implemented with a sensitivity that seemed at times an affront to Navy tradition. The eventual resolution surprisingly satisfied America, satisfied the Soviets, and only Fidel Castro felt betrayed at the immediate outcome. The Soviet nuclear-capable SS-4 Medium Range Ballistic Missiles were removed from Cuba, as were the Soviet strategic IL-28 bombers. Khrushchev allowed Castro to retain the defensive antiaircraft batteries provided he not use them against American U-2 high altitude surveillance planes, left a 3,000 man Soviet combat brigade on the island, and Castro was promised that he would never have to pay for any future Soviet defensive weaponry. In return, Khrushchev received a direct and very public pledge that the United States would never invade Cuba, and a secret pledge that the United Stated would dismantle the obsolete but symbolic Jupiter medium range ballistic missile from Turkey within five months time. Later in 1962, Castro accepted $53 million in American medical supplies and baby food in return for his release of 1,113 survivors of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Frankel portrays the facts of the resolution of the Cuban Missile crisis cogently, but it is in his exploration of the dramatic and frenetic internal debate over the meaning of the signals on both sides, and even the logistics of information flow, that make the book difficult to put down.

The Kennedy administration had secretly recorded many meetings, including those of the ExCom, and the revealed data now available sheds new light on the events as they occurred. Frankel is a reporter, a former executive editor of the New York Times, and won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of President Nixon's 1972 visit to China. As he writes about the events and decisions that precipitated and then resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis over forty years after the fact, with newly available information, and some fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, Frankel can be both brutally and breathtakingly honest.

Some might say that the most brutal as well as breathtaking conclusion drawn by Max Frankel is that Khrushchev and Kennedy never came as near the point of no return, a nuclear Armageddon over the Soviet missiles in Cuban as has been oft declared and glorified with a kind of delicious horror in America and around the world. Instead, the story is more about the way both national leaders were plagued with over-aggressive and at times illogical advisors, and internally confronted by an array of opportunistic political critics. The truth is revealed in the ways both leaders personally intended to act, and did act, to avoid escalation - even as events indeed escalated, and misunderstandings appeared to mushroom like the fearful images that colored the entire affair. This correction to the historical record is welcome indeed. Yet, this is not the sole accomplishment of High Noon. Our understanding of key important players and events is not only enhanced by Frankel's attention and perspicacity, but readers gain a whole new perspective on the crisis and its resolution. Just as certain "paradigm blindness" afflicted key members of the national security bureaucracy in the United States, and the Soviet Union, and Havana for that matter, historians and other observers have also been afflicted with a kind of paradigm blindness. We have seen Kennedy and Khrushchev as responding to a purely military threat and weighing fair options posed by advisors who were only serving their President. Yet, Frankel exposes two men who were attempting to resolve not only the facts of the threat, but the paradigm flaws driving their own advisors. Khrushchev, the "wily old peasant" and Kennedy the wunderkind occupying a fresh new White House faced down fear as they faced down their own animated and noisy advisors, and their internal critics.

We have long been aware of the impact and perspectives on the crisis of men like Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the crusty Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. Frankel reveals the real depth of animosity for the White House during this high-pressure predicament. Likewise, the perspectives of senior Communist Party leadership of Nikita Khrushchev's wild ideas are richly illustrated. What comes through most clearly is that in different ways, the inexperienced and urbane Kennedy and unsophisticated political survivor Khrushchev both overcame the animal reactivity stoked by much of their staff. While the world waited in fear and helplessness, this unlikely pair of leaders learned a great deal about each other, and themselves, in October 1962. In response to what both sides later recognized as alarmingly dangerous communications pitfalls, Kennedy and Khrushchev implemented a hotline teletype connection between Washington and Moscow in 1963, with an eye to avoiding the nuclear brink. High noon had come and gone without a shootout, and we would not pass this way again.

A review of High Noon in the Cold War would not be complete without a mention of the outstanding work Frankel does in portraying one lesser known hero on the American side. CIA Director John McCone, a traditional conservative brought over into the Kennedy Administration for political reasons after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, is a man that modern political observers often seek in Washington today and do not find. McCone is distinguished in modern studies of CIA history as the only Director of Central Intelligence who gave primacy to accurate intelligence estimating, instead of to either covert action or managerial aspects of the CIA. An outsider to the intelligence community, in the months leading up to the Cuban Missile crisis McCone took issue with his own CIA's assessment that the Soviet Union was preparing for nothing much in Cuba, despite of the deployment of a ring of SAM anti-aircraft batteries being installed in August 1962. McCone instead advised Kennedy that this activity logically related to something else either planned or ongoing that warranted immediate and serious American attention. The world, and certainly the mythology of a new Camelot in America, would have placed the white-haired 60-year-old Republican in the Kennedy administration as the odd man out - and he was. But his dead on reasoning and independent streak (later seen in his resignation from the Johnson administration in 1965 because of Johnson's disregard for the bleak CIA assessment of the possibility of U.S. success in Vietnam in favor of more rosy Pentagon assessments) were a precious balm to a President who needed reason instead of reactionaries.

While John F. Kennedy may also fit the bill, McCone brings to mind the characteristic contributions of a group of Americans most recently illuminated by former Navy Secretary James Webb in his new book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (Broadway, 2004). The intrinsic stubbornness and fierce individualism of McCone was a key factor in the resolution of the Cuban Missile crisis, and that Kennedy gave credence to McCone's advice over the majority opinion attests to his own qualities of Scots-Irish independence in the face of overwhelming pressure.

While the Cuban Missile crisis holds a unique position in American history, Frankel's fresh visitation of the men and the process of October 1962 is also of critical importance today. High Noon provides not only a wise enhancement of our national memory but a prudent guide for the present. John F. Kennedy listened to the heated and often confused chatter and outdated paradigms of his national security team, and then sought time alone or with key advisors, away from the microphones, to assess the reasonability of the recommendations - as well as the soundness and logic inherent in the information that came to him under the guise of national intelligence. When determining his course of action, a course that could have led to all-out war and the death of thousands of servicemen and civilians here and in the Soviet Union, Kennedy contacted each of the living former American Presidents for advice and comment. His pre-decision conversation with Dwight D. Eisenhower is particularly poignant and simultaneously amusing. Furthermore, while he informed a group of twenty key congressional leaders after his decision to respond to the Soviet missile deployment with a Cuban quarantine had been made, they were pleased to have been informed if not consulted about a decision that was still very much unknown to the American public or the rest of the world.

Almost a full generation after the end of the Cold War, America finds itself engaged in multiple overseas military deployments, wars of liberation, and wars against terrorism. While nuclear annihilation seems far from imminent, warnings of the danger of weapons of mass destruction used against innocent civilians in America and elsewhere flow consistently from Washington and from other monitors of global security. Congressmen and women, politics-watchers around the country and living ex-Presidents can only imagine the role of deliberation and ascendance of reason over bureaucratic or political agendas that Max Frankel so elegantly and engagingly portrays in High Noon in the Cold War.

Posted on Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Karen Kwiatkowski, (...)

SHOULD BE READ BY ALL PEOPLE WHO ASSUME THEY KNOW IT ALL -.......2004-12-29

NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT, THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK.
IT'S TAKES A SUBJECT, THE FACTS ABOUT WHICH HAVE BEEN BEATEN TO DEATH IN ALL MEDIA FORMS, AND FOR ONCE, ALLOWS YOU TO COME AWAY WITH A CLEAR, FACTUAL, THOROUGH, UNCOMPLICATED, UNBIASED UNDERSTANDING OF EXACTLY WHAT TOOK PLACE. IT'S LIKE CUTTING THROUGH BUTTER WITH A HOT KNIFE. IF THIS SUBJECT INTERESTS YOU, IT'S A MUST READ.

Average customer rating:

An important and weirdly thrilling book...
Wonderful.
Total intimidad
Startling short novel
A Houdini making things smug before his escape

Intimacy: A Novel
Hanif Kureishi
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Romance | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Fiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Romance Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Love in a Blue Time
The Buddha of Suburbia
The BLACK ALBUM
Tropic of Cancer
Intimacy (Unrated, Widescreen Edition)

ASIN: 0684852756

Amazon.com

Hanif Kureishi's fourth novel made many reviewers uneasy on its first appearance in the U.K., because it cuts so painfully near to the bone. If a novelist's first duty is to tell the truth, then the author has done his duty with unflinching courage. Intimacy gives us the thoughts and memories of a middle-aged writer on the night before he walks out on his wife and two young sons for of a younger woman. A very modern man, without political convictions or religious beliefs, he vaguely hopes to find fulfillment in sexual love. No one is spared Kureishi's cold, penetrating gaze or lacerating pen. "She thinks she's feminist, but she's just bad-tempered," the unnamed narrator says of his abandoned wife. A male friend advises him, "Marriage is a battle, a terrible journey, a season in hell, and a reason for living."

At the heart of Intimacy is this terrible paradox: "You don't stop loving someone just because you hate them." Male readers will wince with recognition at the narrator's hatred of entrapment and domesticity, and his implacable urge towards freedom, escape, even loneliness. Female readers may find it a truly horrific revelation. Kureishi is only telling it like it is, in staccato sentences of pinpoint accuracy. By far the author's best yet: a brilliant, devastating work. --Christopher Hart, Amazon.co.uk

Book Description

"Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately."

Jay, the narrator of Hanif Kureishi's third novel, tells his story on the night that he is preparing to leave his lover, Susan, and their two boys. His departure will not be impulsive: "I have contemplated this rupture from all sides," he says. But it will happen. He and Susan live comfortably in London. Each loves the children. Yet Jay, "lost in the middle of [his] life," craves and depends on passion in life, and it is no longer there.

Known for "very funny works about serious topics" (San Francisco Review of Books) and his uncanny ability to capture the mores of our time, Kureishi strips away all posturing and self-justification to expose the flaws of his own protagonist and the failure of intimacy. Searingly honest, he explores the fears and desires that drive a man to leave a woman. Rarely has such challenging and complex emotion fit into so compact a novel; rarely has an experience both common and uniquely devastating been so courageously portrayed.

Customer Reviews:

An important and weirdly thrilling book..........2007-09-24

When Hanif Kureishi's Intimacy was published last year in Britain, it ignited a firestorm in both Kureishi's family and in the press, with one of its many critics denouncing it as "this short, odious book." And it's true that Intimacy's narrator, Jay (a scriptwriter) is wilful, childish, narcissistic and wild. And, yes, odious too; he even does the occasional parent-teacher interview in his "latest favourite suit, on acid" and keeps--even though he's the father of very young children--ecstasy, LSD, and an old bottle of amyl nitrate in the fridge. But he's also a man who is tender, introspective, witty, and exuberantly honest. Herein lies the book's reckless charm and elating momentum.

Intimacy also joins a long line of 20th-century novels that tell the story of men leaving home, beginning with the husband in John Updike's Too Far to Go, a man who--before leaving his wife and children--repairs hinges and latches: "a Houdini making things snug before his escape..." In novels by Richard Stern and Bernard Malamud and any number of other writers on the theme of men who are also ambivalently on the run, the women being left behind are (like the wives in Updike's fiction) dark-haired, enduring, and sexually withholding, while the mistresses are fair-haired, adoring, and quick to offer sexual comfort. The blondes also travel with a vast array of cosmetic and herbal supplies; in the case of Jay's Nina--a shrewdly wistful phantom forever kept off-stage in her pale, hippie clothes--it's a bag stocked with nipple cream, tapes of the sound of the sea, postcards of cats, packets of camomile tea, and other bits of the equipment so vital to "mobile girls."

"Soon we will be like strangers," Jay tells us, speaking of Susan, the mother of his children. But no, they can never be that. "Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history." Jay also fears dying--he's invited to more funerals than dinner parties--and so has little use for women who are also too quickly growing older, as he jauntily makes clear when he ironically asks what's wrong with maturity. "Think of the conversations I could have--about literature and bitterness--with a forty-year-old!"

Susan belongs in this age range, but in spite of his making her his muse by turning her (via metaphor) into a blank page--she's at the bottom of the stairs in her white T-shirt and white slippers, looking "so white I could write on her"--his evocations of her can also convey his love for her, as in the following scene when he's moved by her enthusiasm as she kisses their children: "When we really talk, it is about them, something they have said or done, as if they are a passion no one else can share or understand."

During his last night with his family, Jay experiences the outside world as both ominous and alluring. But mostly ominous: "Outside, the dark leaves on the trees flap in the wind like hundreds of long green tongues, the branches knocking at me." He dreads leaving his sons, two "fierce and ebullient" little boys who are never named--this is one of Kureishi's brilliant strokes--two wild boys who careen through the novel, adding to both its anguish and its comedy. Jay says of the three-year-old, "I wonder when I will sleep beside him again, if ever. He has a vicious kick and a tendency, at unexpected moments, to vomit in my hair. But he can pat and stroke my face like a lover. His affectionate words and little voice are God's breath to me." This has a parent's narcissism in it, true, but it's also incredibly tender. And yet in the skilfully abridged version of Intimacy that appeared last summer in The New Yorker, a few lines down from this adoring tribute Jay is on the threshold of his front door, the fresh wind sweeping through him as one of the more compelling of his inner voices commands, "Go. You must go."

This is where the novel should have ended, on page 92. It would have been a novella then, but it would have been the right thing to keep it emotionally and lyrically dynamic. Instead it goes on for another twenty-six pages, and the line that follows the powerful "Go. You must go," is almost criminally banal: "I am kicking over the traces." Along with a few other lacklustre passages, this is one of the relatively few disappointments in what is otherwise a vivid and fearless novel. The good bits in the final pages could also have been spliced in earlier. At times it's also as if the war between Jay's id and his superego has triggered a war in the syntax, which is sometimes formal and Victorian, sometimes the Kiplingesque English of Jay's father, sometimes London street slang.

But whatever its deficiencies, Intimacy is an important and weirdly thrilling book, reminding us (as we occasionally do need reminding) how honourable that other war is: the war between what's most "worthy" and what's most alive.

*******************************************************************
This novel first appeared in The Globe and Mail

Wonderful........2007-09-18

Due to this book, Kureishi has become one of my favorite authors. It's short, sweet, and precise.

Total intimidad.......2006-06-26

Leí en una de las reseñas escritras en la página, que era un poco absurdo el nombre, dado que la intimidad se daba como consecuencia del amor. En realidad uno puede entender este libro desde dos puntos de vista. La intimidad de pareja y la intimidad de Jay, el protagonista, con su propia verdad. La intimidad en este caso es su intimidad, tal cual, intima e intransferible. Es él quien durante todo el libro habla sobre su relación con su mujer, sus hijos, lo desencantado que está con todo, con la vida, con el amor...
Intimidad es la historia de una pareja (ella una súper ejecutiva y él un escritor y guionista) que tienen todo lo que las parejas actuales buscan: reconocimiento, fama, dinero etc... pero que llegan a un punto de saturación y aburrimiento que nada llena. Ni siquiera los hijos. Este libro es la reflexión de un hombre de cuarenta y pocos años que está completamente saturado. Intimidad es la explosión tardía de una crísis existencial. Pero vale la pena leerlo. Cada cual sacará sus propias conclusiones.

Startling short novel.......2005-11-25

I spend a lot of time searching out books just like this one; short, vibrant, challenging and with beautiful language. Intimacy is a compelling book that is startling in its bold use of language and the stark honesty of the main character, a man on the brink of leaving his wife and two kids in pursuit of sex with a woman he had an affair with, who may, or may not, take him back.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the narrator, Jay, is completely unlikeable. Despite being middle-aged he acts like a selfish and self-pitying child. Jay complains and whines about everything and has led a life of self-indulgent excesses. He disliked his children when they were younger and admits to having pushed one roughly when it was a baby so that it hit his head. He also keeps drugs in the fridge and has had endless affairs while married. His wife, Susan, is also quite unlikeable, as are the majority of his friends. What redeems the book is its short, snappy style. I would not have wanted to read a thick, deeply involving book about these characters, but a short novel was just right.

I thought the book was a perfect portrayal of the particular type of modern person that believes in nothing, and therefore has nothing to believe in! Without belief in anything such as lasting love, himself, God or something other than pleasure and sex, Jay is on the pathway of destruction. Jay is actually a coward, as instead of telling his wife face to face that he is going to leave her and their children, he sneaks out of the house while she is at work and leaves a note on the table explaining all. In contrast to some of the other reviews, I do not think that this is a book that sums up the whole of the male species. Jay is a disturbed guy - hence the cocaine and the ecstasy and the mindless f*cking and goodness knows what else! There is more to life than that.

Read this book if you like short, thought-provoking fiction that dwells on the seedier aspects of the male psyche. Skip this one if you want to read about likeable characters.

JoAnne

A Houdini making things smug before his escape.......2005-06-18

I can still so clearly remember the afternoon I first read the Hanif Kureishi story that became INTIMACY---in the New Yorker in 1997 or 1998---and how I was so elated by it that I phoned an editor friend in another city who, like me, was a single mother whose children were officially grown up (but still trying to grow up) just as we were two women who were officially grown up (but still trying to grow up) and although we both belonged to a category of readers who should despise this book (women who've sometimes had a rough time in their relationships with sexually charismatic men) we just couldn't stop talking about it and singing its praises. But we didn't have to want a man like this in our lives (not any more, we didn't) to value that kind of man's incarnation as a character in an extraordinary novel.

It's true that when INTIMACY was first published in Britain, it ignited a firestorm in both Kureishi's family and in the press, with one of its many critics denouncing it as "this short, odious book." And it's also true that INTIMACY'S narrator, Jay (a scriptwriter) is wilful, childish, narcissistic and wild. And, yes, odious too; he even does the occasional parent-teacher interview in his "latest favourite suit, on acid" and even though he's the father of very young children he keeps Ecstasy, LSD, and an old bottle of amyl nitrate in the fridge. But he's also a man who is tender, introspective, witty, and exuberantly honest. Herein lies the book's reckless charm and elating momentum.

INTIMACY also joins a long line of 20th-century novels that tell the story of men leaving home, beginning with the husband in John Updike's Too Far to Go, a man who, before leaving his wife and children, repairs hinges and latches: "a Houdini making things snug before his escape..."

In novels by Richard Stern and Bernard Malamud and any number of other male writers on the theme of men who are also ambivalently on the run, the women being left behind are dark-haired, enduring, and sexually withholding, while the mistresses are fair-haired, adoring, and quick to offer sexual comfort. These blondes travel with a vast array of cosmetic and herbal supplies; in the case of Jay's mistress Nina--a shrewdly wistful phantom forever kept off-stage in her pale, hippie clothes--it's a bag stocked with nipple cream, tapes of the sound of the sea, postcards of cats, packets of camomile tea, and other bits of the equipment so vital to "mobile girls."

"Soon we will be like strangers," Jay tells us, speaking of Susan, the mother of his children. But no, they can never be that. "Hurting someone is an act of reluctant intimacy. We will be dangerous acquaintances with a history." Jay also fears dying--he's invited to more funerals than dinner parties--and so has little use for women who are also too quickly growing older, as he makes clear when he ironically asks what's wrong with maturity. "Think of the conversations I could have--about literature and bitterness--with a forty-year-old!"

Susan belongs in this age range, but in spite of his making her his muse by turning her (via metaphor) into a blank page--she's at the bottom of the stairs in her white T-shirt and white slippers, looking "so white I could write on her"--his evocations of her can also convey his love for her, as in the following scene when he's moved by her enthusiasm as she kisses their children: "When we really talk, it is about them, something they have said or done, as if they are a passion no one else can share or understand."

During his last night with his family, Jay experiences the outside world as both ominous and alluring. But mostly ominous: "Outside, the dark leaves on the trees flap in the wind like hundreds of long green tongues, the branches knocking at me." He dreads leaving his sons, two "fierce and ebullient" little boys who are never named--this is one of Kureishi's many brilliant strokes--two wild boys who careen through the novel, adding to both its anguish and its comedy.

Jay says of the three-year-old, "I wonder when I will sleep beside him again, if ever. He has a vicious kick and a tendency, at unexpected moments, to vomit in my hair. But he can pat and stroke my face like a lover. His affectionate words and little voice are God's breath to me." This has a parent's narcissism in it, true, but it's also incredibly tender. And yet in the incredibly skilfully abridged version of INTIMACY that appeared in The New Yorker, a few lines down from this adoring tribute Jay is on the threshold of his front door, the fresh wind sweeping through him as one of the more compelling of his inner voices commands, "Go. You must go."

This is where the novel should have ended, on page 92. It would have been a novella then, but it would have been the right thing to keep it emotionally and lyrically dynamic. Instead it goes on for another twenty-six pages, and the line that follows the powerful "Go. You must go," is almost criminally banal: "I am kicking over the traces." Along with a few other lacklustre passages, this is one of the relatively few disappointments in what is otherwise a vivid and fearless novel.

At times it's also as if the war between Jay's id and his superego has triggered a war in the syntax, which is sometimes formal and Victorian, sometimes the Kiplingesque English of Jay's father, sometimes London street slang.

But whatever its deficiencies, INTIMACY is an important and weirdly thrilling book, reminding us (as we occasionally do need reminding) how honourable that OTHER war is: the war between what's most worthy and what's most alive.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books