Synopses & Reviews
What the Kremlin wanted during the Cold War and what it was willing to do to get it.
Nikita Khrushchev was a leader who risked war to get peace during the most dangerous years of the twentieth century. In Khrushchev's Cold War, Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, authors of the Cuban missile crisis classic One Hell of a Gamble, bring to life head-to-head confrontations between Khrushchev and Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Drawing from their unrivaled access to Politburo and Soviet intelligence materials, they reveal for the first time three moments when Khrushchev's inner circle restrained him from plunging the superpowers into war.
Combining new insights into the Cuban crisis, startling narratives on the hot spots of Suez, Iraq, Berlin, and Southeast Asia, and vivid portraits of leaders in the developing world who challenged Moscow and Washington Castro, Lumumba, Nasser, and Mao Khrushchev's Cold War provides one of the most gripping and authoritative studies of the crisis years of the Cold War.
Review
"Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali lift the veil of secrecy further than ever, exposing how Moscow made foreign policy decisions during Nikita Khrushchev's tempestuous reign as leader of the Soviet Union from 1955 to 1964." New York Times
Review
"Working with recently released Soviet documents, the authors offer a nuanced picture of the Soviet leader and of a time marked by fear and plenty of pettiness (as when Khrushchev, touring the U.S., was refused admission to Disneyland). Sobering...and necessary reading for historians of the modern era." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
What the Kremlin wanted during the Cold War and what it was willing to do to get it.
Synopsis
Nikita Khrushchev was a leader who risked war to get peace during the most dangerous years of the twentieth century. In Khrushchev's Cold War, Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, authors of the Cuban missile crisis classic "One Hell of a Gamble," bring to life head-to-head confrontations between Khrushchev and Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Drawing from their unrivaled access to Politburo and Soviet intelligence materials, they reveal for the first time three moments when Khrushchev's inner circle restrained him from plunging the superpowers into war. Combining new insights into the Cuban crisis, startling narratives on the hot spots of Suez, Iraq, Berlin, and Southeast Asia, and vivid portraits of leaders in the developing world who challenged Moscow and Washington, Castro, Lumumba, Nasser, and Mao Khrushchev's Cold War provides one of the most gripping and authoritative studies of the crisis years of the Cold War.
About the Author
Aleksandr Fursenko, one of Russia's leading historians, is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Timothy Naftali, a frequent contributor to
Slate and NPR, is an associate professor at the University of Virginia, where he directs the Presidential Recordings Program and Kremlin Decision-Making Project at the Miller Center of Public Affairs.
An Associate Professor at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs, Timothy Naftali directs the Presidential Recordings Program and the Kremlin Decision-making Project. Co-author of One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964, he is currently completing Khrushchev's Cold War and Blindspot: The Secret History of US Counterterrorism. Naftali was most recently a consultant to the 9/11 Commission.