A Times History Book of the Year 2022From the #1 bestselling historian Max Hastings âthe heart-stopping story of the missile crisisâ Daily TelegraphThe 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 Hastingsâs 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 Castroâs Cuba, Nikita Khrushchevâs Russia and Kennedyâs 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 todayâs 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.Max Hastings' book 'Abyss' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 15-05-2023.
