K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist

Berlin 1961

Frederick Kempe · 640 pages

Based on a new documents and interviews, this work is a look at the Berlin Crisis of 1961, with powerful applications for the present. In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev called it "the most dangerous place on earth." He knew what he was talking about. Much has been written about the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 was more decisive in shaping the Cold War, and more pe

The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made

Walter Isaacson, Evan Thomas · 853 pages

A captivating blend of personal biography and public drama, The Wise Men introduces six close friends who shaped the role their country would play in the dangerous years following World War II. They were the original best and brightest, whose towering intellects, outsize personalities, and dramatic actions would bring order to the postwar chaos and leave a legacy that dominates American policy to

Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War

Michael Dobbs · 418 pages

An account of the pivotal six-month period spanning the end of World War II, the dawn of the nuclear age, and the beginning of the Cold War.

Truman

David McCullough · 1,120 pages

Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power

Robert Dallek · 752 pages

With the publication of his magisterial biography of John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life, Robert Dallek cemented his reputation as one of the greatest historians of our time. Now, in this epic joint biography, he offers a provocative, groundbreaking portrait of a pair of outsize leaders whose unlikely partnership dominated the world stage and changed the course of history.More than thirty years af

George F. Kennan: An American Life

John Lewis Gaddis · 814 pages

A remarkably revealing view of how this greatest of Cold War strategists came to doubt his strategy and always doubted himself.

Diplomacy

Henry Kissinger · 912 pages

In this controversial and monumental book - arguably his most important - Henry Kissinger illuminates just what diplomacy is. Moving from a sweeping overview of his own interpretation of history to personal accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Kissinger describes the ways in which the art of diplomacy and the balance of power have created the world we live in, and shows how Americans,

The Trial of Henry Kissinger

Christopher Hitchens · 159 pages

Drawing on first-hand testimony, previously unpublished documentation and broad sweeps through material released under the Freedom of Information Act, Christopher Hitchens mounts a devastating indictment of a man whose ambition and ruthlessness have directly resulted in both individual murders and widespread, indiscriminate slaughter.--Publisher description.

The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future

Victor Cha · 552 pages

Looks at the nation of North Korea, its history, social conditions, and place in world politics as it stands today and where it is likely to end up in the future. In this book the author, pulls back the curtain on provocative, isolationist North Korea, providing our best look yet at its history and the rise of the Kim family dynasty and the obsessive personality cult that empowers them. He illumin

Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War

Giles Whittell · 274 pages

Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first prisoner exchange between East and West? Bridge of Spies traces the paths to that exchange on February 10, 1962. It is the story of three men -- William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent arrested by the FBI in New York City and jailed as a Soviet s

The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times

Odd Arne Westad · 498 pages

The Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States indelibly shaped the world we live in today -- especially international politics, economics, and military affairs. This volume shows how the globalization of the Cold War during the 20th century created the foundations for most of today's key international conflicts, including the "war on terror." Odd Arne Westad examines the origi

Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis

Graham T. Allison, Philip Zelikow · 338 pages

One of the most influental political science works written in the post World War II era, the original edition of Essence of Decision is a unique and fascinating examination of the pivotal event of the cold Cold War. Not simply revised, but completely re-written, the Second Edition of this classic text is a fresh reinterpretation of the theories and events surrounding the Cuban Missle Crisis, incor

The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union

Serhii Plokhy · 489 pages

America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975

George C. Herring · 354 pages

The author portrays American participation in the Vietnam War as the logical culmination of the containment policy that began under Harry Truman in the late 1940's. Also his portrayal of the complex challenge that Vietnam posed for the United States and the varied responses it evoked from American people & leaders.

The Untold History of The United States

Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick · 750 pages

A companion to the ten-part documentary series outlines provocative arguments against official American historical records to reveal the origins of conservatism and the obstacles to progressive change.

Seize The Hour: When Nixon Met Mao

Margaret MacMillan · 384 pages

In 1972 Nixon amazed the world by going to China. The first trip ever by a US President marked the end of deep freeze in Sino-American relations. Was Nixon the supplicant to the Middle Kingdom? Has the US been at a disadvantage ever since? Will the 21st century see co-operation or China challenging American dominance?

The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and The Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom

Blaine Harden · 304 pages

Kissinger: Vol 1: The Idealist, 1923-1968

Niall Ferguson · 986 pages

No American statesman has been as revered or as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super K"--the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama--he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial two-volume biography, drawing not only on Kissinger's hitherto

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Michael B. Oren · 464 pages

Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war never really ended. Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada, is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Michael B. Oren’s magnificent *Six Days of War*, an internationally acclaimed bestseller, is the first comprehensive ac

The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

David Talbot · 704 pages

"An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful and secretive colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers. America's greatest untold story: the United States' rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on

Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire

Victor Sebestyen · 451 pages

Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Robert F. Kennedy

Kissinger

Walter Isaacson · 893 pages

As his parents finished packing the few personal belongings they were permitted to take out of Germany, the bespectacled 15-year-old stood in the corner of the apartment memorizing the details of the scene. He was a bookish and reflective child, with that odd mixture of ego and insecurity that can come from growing up smart yet persecuted. "I'll be back someday," he said to the customs inspector w

Moscow, December 25th, 1991

Conor O'Clery · 316 pages