Max Hastings is the author of twenty-eight books, most about conflict, and between 1986 and 2002 served as editor in chief of the Daily Telegraph, then as editor of the Evening Standard. He has won many prizes, for both his journalism and his books, the most recent of which are the bestsellers Vietnam, The Secret War, Catastrophe, and All Hell Let Loose. Knighted in 2002, Hastings is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of King's College London, and a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He has two grown children, Charlotte and Harry, and lives with his wife, Penny, in West Berkshire, where they garden enthusiastically.
"Max Hastings's brilliantly told account of the Cuban missile
crisis shows how the word 'abyss' is no exaggeration for the drama
that unfolded 60 years ago. . . . Hastings has cleverly woven the
story together from all sides, most interestingly from little-known
Cuban sources previously unused in American, Russian or European
accounts." - Air Mail"Max Hastings brings his signature style--a
mixture of the grand (sweeping insights into great events) and the
granular (carefully sifted details from diaries and letters of
ordinary people)--to the much-studied subject of the Cuban missile
crisis. The result is a book to match the best things ever written
on the subject in terms of immediacy and drama." - Christian
Science Monitor"Hastings . . . highlights in this engrossing
account just how close the U.S. and the Soviet Union came to
nuclear war in October 1962. . . . Throughout, Hastings draws sharp
personality profiles of John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel
Castro, and their top-level advisers, and expertly mines archival
records to recreate the contemporaneous rationale for their
decision-making, even when it looks foolish or reckless in
hindsight. . . . This riveting history speaks clearly to the
present moment." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)"One of the
greatest living historians tackles the Cuban missile crisis. . . .
Hastings argues that Kennedy prevented a catastrophic conflict by
deciding that [bombing strategic sites and invading] was a bad
idea. Instead, he ordered a blockade and sent a warning to
Khrushchev, who withdrew the missiles. The author's painfully
insightful conclusion credits Kennedy with brilliant statesmanship
but adds that most successors would have chosen war. The definitive
account of a brief yet frightening period in global history.
- Kirkus ReviewsHastings . . . masterfully places the Cuban Missile
Crisis within the tensions and relations between the United States
and the Soviet Union in their Cold War context. The tense and
suspenseful atmosphere interweaving the negotiations and political
developments . . . are palpable in this elegantly written account.
The personalities of all major players . . . are all fully realized
in this book. . . . Based on extensive archival research, including
in the UK, this eminently readable account provides a nice, single
volume overview of the Cuban Missile Crisis. - Library JournalThe
Cuban Missile Crisis . . . easily could have escalated to nuclear
war. . . . notable historian Hastings provides a narrative more
coherent than would have been experienced by the principals,
emphasizing how limited information could have led to disaster,
such as when the USSR's Nikita Khrushchev proposed to base nuclear
missiles in Cuba as his military assured could be done secretly and
without provoking the U.S. . . . Replete with astute
characterizations of participants in the crisis, Hastings' able
account registers the peril humanity then faced and still faces in
a world of competitive, nuclear-armed countries. -
Booklist"[Hastings's] incisive account of the standoff between the
US and Russia has chilling and timely lessons 60 years on . . . .
Abyss provides chastening lessons on how easily things can spiral
out of control but also how catastrophe can be averted." - The
Guardian
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