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Nuclear folly : a history of the Cuban Missile Crisis / Serhii Plokhy.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : W. W. Norton & Company, [2021]Edition: First editionDescription: xviii, 444 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780393540819
  • 0393540812
Subject(s):
Contents:
Apprentice -- Master of the game -- Triumph of communism -- Rocket man -- Going nuclear -- Operation Anadyr -- High seas -- Prisoner of Berlin -- Tip-off -- Honeymoon -- "Wipe them out" -- Quarantine -- Moscow night -- Blinking in the dark -- Wooden knife -- The Americans are coming! -- Turkish quagmire -- Losing control -- "Target destroyed!" -- Secret rendezvous -- Bermuda Triangle -- Sunday scare -- Winners and losers -- Indignation -- Mission impossible -- Back at the barricade -- Thanksgiving.
Summary: "A dramatic re-creation and urgent examination of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today's world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must return to the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, involving John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was avoided for one central reason: fear. Serhii Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 972.9106 P729 Available 33111009803970
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 972.9106 P729 Available 33111010503379
Adult Book Adult Book Northport Library NonFiction 972.9106 P729 Available 33111009841970
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A harrowing account of the Cuban missile crisis and how the US and USSR came to the brink of nuclear apocalypse.

Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today's world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis.

Serhii Plokhy's Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. In breathtaking detail, Plokhy vividly recounts the young JFK being played by the canny Khrushchev; the hotheaded Castro willing to defy the USSR and threatening to align himself with China; the Soviet troops on the ground clearing jungle foliage in the tropical heat, and desperately trying to conceal nuclear installations on Cuba, which were nonetheless easily spotted by U-2 spy planes; and the hair-raising near misses at sea that nearly caused a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine to fire its weapons.

More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was ultimately avoided for one central reason: fear, and the realization that any escalation on either the Soviets' or the Americans' part would lead to mutual destruction.

Drawing on a range of Soviet archival sources, including previously classified KGB documents, as well as White House tapes, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Apprentice -- Master of the game -- Triumph of communism -- Rocket man -- Going nuclear -- Operation Anadyr -- High seas -- Prisoner of Berlin -- Tip-off -- Honeymoon -- "Wipe them out" -- Quarantine -- Moscow night -- Blinking in the dark -- Wooden knife -- The Americans are coming! -- Turkish quagmire -- Losing control -- "Target destroyed!" -- Secret rendezvous -- Bermuda Triangle -- Sunday scare -- Winners and losers -- Indignation -- Mission impossible -- Back at the barricade -- Thanksgiving.

"A dramatic re-creation and urgent examination of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today's world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must return to the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, involving John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was avoided for one central reason: fear. Serhii Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day"-- Provided by publisher.

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