
The Abyss
Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962
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Narrated by:
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Max Hastings
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John Hopkins
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By:
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Max Hastings
About this listen
Bestselling author Max Hastings offers a welcome re-evaluation of one of the most gripping and tense international events in modern history—the Cuban Missile Crisis—providing a people-focused narrative that explores the attitudes and conduct of Russians, Cubans, Americans, and a terrified world that followed each moment as it unfolded.
In The Abyss, Max Hastings turns his focus to one of the most terrifying events of the mid-twentieth century—the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Hastings looks at the conflict with fresh eyes, focusing on the people at the heart of the crisis—America President John F. Kennedy, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro, and a host of their advisors.
Combining in-depth research with Hasting’s well-honed insights, The Abyss is a human history that unfolds on a wide, colorful canvas. As the action moves back and forth from Moscow to Washington, DC, to Havana, Hastings seeks to explain, as much as to describe, the attitudes and conduct of the Soviets, Cubans, and Americans, and to recreate the tension and heightened fears of countless innocent bystanders whose lives hung in the balance. Reflecting on the outcome of these events, he reveals how the aftermath of this momentous crisis continues to reverberate today.
Powerful, and riveting, filled with compelling detail and told with narrative flair, The Abyss is history at its finest.
©2022 Max Hastings (P)2022 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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A Must Read
- By Robert from Brookline on 08-22-21
By: Serhii Plokhy
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Operation Pedestal
- The Fleet that Battled to Malta, 1942
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, John Hopkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Renowned historian Max Hastings recreates one of the most thrilling events of World War II: Operation Pedestal, the British action to save its troops from starvation on Malta - an action-packed tale of courage, fortitude, loss, and triumph against all odds.
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Sir Max Hastings at his best
- By J.Brock on 10-27-22
By: Max Hastings
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Operation Biting
- The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler's Radar
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Max Hastings, John Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Operation Biting retells this dramatic operation through a gallery of amazing characters from Winston Churchill, who promoted the raid, to Lord Mountbatten, who commanded Combined Operations, to the brave unsung commandos who fought their way through enemy territory. A cliffhanger of a story that ratchets the suspense to the last moment, Operation Biting sheds new light on an exciting and little-known chapter of the Second World War.
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Another Tour de Force by Sir Max Hastings
- By JOHN DAVIS on 04-20-25
By: Max Hastings
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World War Two
- A Graphic Account of the Greatest and Most Terrible Event in Human History (All You Need to Know)
- By: Sir Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Jon Connell
- Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Within Western culture, World War Two continues to exercise an extraordinary fascination for generations unborn when it took place. The obvious explanation is that it was the greatest and most terrible event in human history. Within the vast compass of the struggle, some individuals scaled summits of courage and nobility, while others plumbed depths of evil, in a fashion that compels the awe of posterity.
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Takeaways from our most eloquent living historian
- By Ted on 10-16-22
By: Sir Max Hastings
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Inferno
- The World at War, 1939-1945
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 31 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of our finest military historians, a monumental work that shows us at once the truly global reach of World War II and its deeply personal consequences.
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Superb
- By David on 04-05-21
By: Max Hastings
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Russia
- Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921
- By: Antony Beevor
- Narrated by: Rob Heaps
- Length: 21 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. The doomed White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky’s Red Army and the single-minded Communist dictatorship under Lenin.
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Not Enough Context
- By Amazon Customer on 02-14-23
By: Antony Beevor
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The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War
- By: Mark E. Stille
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world at the start of World War II and came to dominate the Pacific in the early months of the war. This was a remarkable turnaround for a navy that only began to modernize in 1868. The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War details the Japanese ships which fought in the Pacific and examines the principles on which they were designed, how they were armed, when and where they were deployed, and how effective they were in battle.
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Great Technical Reference
- By Dale H. Reeck on 06-09-18
By: Mark E. Stille
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Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Nick Sandys
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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This book is the culmination of more than three decades of meticulous historiographic research on Nazi Germany by one of the period’s most distinguished historians. The volume brings together the most important and influential aspects of Ian Kershaw’s research on the Holocaust for the first time. The writings are arranged in three sections - Hitler and the Final Solution, popular opinion and the Jews in Nazi Germany, and the Final Solution in historiography - and Kershaw provides an introduction and a closing section on the uniqueness of Nazism.
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Excellent Historiography not intended as a history
- By Timothy on 02-17-19
By: Ian Kershaw
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Judgment at Tokyo
- World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
- By: Gary J. Bass
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; shocking atrocities against civilians in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and rampant abuses of prisoners of war in notorious incidents such as the Bataan death march.
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Biased revisionist history
- By Amazon Customer on 12-31-23
By: Gary J. Bass
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Road to Disaster
- A New History of America’s Descent into Vietnam
- By: Brian VanDeMark
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 23 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Many books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite many words of analysis and reflection, no historian has been able to explain why such decent and previously successful men stumbled so badly. That changes with Road to Disaster. Historian Brian VanDeMark draws upon decades of archival research, his own interviews with many of those involved, and a wealth of previously unheard recordings by Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, who served as Defense Secretaries for Kennedy and Johnson.
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Vietnam Veteran
- By Jim Rollins on 04-02-19
By: Brian VanDeMark
Brilliant.
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Max NEVER Disappoints!
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Must read.
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The excellent writing and use of language. Also its bi partisan approach and relevance to todays challenges
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Factual, modern retelling of this nightmare I lived through.
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Hastings does it again
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Brilliant analysis of the Cuban missile crisis.
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Great Read 👍
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Typical great prose and a good balance of application to todays events.
Solid storytelling of a grave time
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One of his best
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