DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Armageddon Letters

Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis

James G Blight author janet M Lang author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield

Published:10th Nov '15

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Armageddon Letters cover

In October, 1962, the Cuban missile crisis brought human civilization to the brink of destruction. On the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous confrontation of the nuclear era, two of the leading experts on the crisis recreate the drama of those tumultuous days as experienced by the leaders of the three countries directly involved: U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and Cuban President Fidel Castro. Organized around the letters exchanged among the leaders as the crisis developed and augmented with many personal details of the circumstances under which they were written, considered, and received, Blight and Lang poignantly document  the rapidly shifting physical and psychological realities faced in Washington, Moscow, and Havana. The result is a revolving stage that allows the reader to experience the Cuban missile crisis as never before—through the eyes of each leader as they move through the crisis. The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis transports the reader back to October 1962, telling a story as gripping as any fictional apocalyptic novel.

The Armageddon Letters innovatively and emotively. . . attempts to reverse the presumed apathy of young people toward nuclear holocaust. . . . [Blight and Lang] succeed as pioneers; their transmedia presentation is a great means of waking up a new generation to history and its lessons. ... Blight draws creative connections that grab our attention. ... the authors achieve their heartfelt intention of saturating us with warnings about a nuclear disaster. This multimedia and transmedia project largely works. . . . We are fortunate that we are sitting here now to read about Armageddon, rather than having experienced it—and that second chance is what Blight and Lang have so cleverly marketed to us. * Journal of American History *

ISBN: 9781442216808

Dimensions: 228mm x 150mm x 23mm

Weight: 476g

320 pages