Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower's Campaign for Peace - Hardcover

Von Tunzelmann, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006224924X ISBN 13: 9780062249241

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2016

Synopsis

A lively, revelatory popular history that tells the story of both the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956--a tale of conspiracy and revolutions, spies and terrorists, kidnappings and assassination plots, the fall of the British Empire and the rise of American hegemony under the heroic leadership of President Dwight D. Eisenhower--which shaped the Middle East and Europe we know today.

The year 1956 was a turning point in history. Over sixteen extraordinary days in October and November of that year, the twin crises involving Suez and Hungary pushed the world to the brink of a nuclear conflict and what many at the time were calling World War III. Blood and Sand delivers this story in an hour-by-hour account through a fascinating international cast of characters: Anthony Eden, the British prime minister, caught in a trap of his own making; Gamal Abdel Nasser, the bold young populist leader of Egypt; David Ben-Gurion, the aging Zionist hero of Israel; Guy Mollet, the bellicose French prime minister; and Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American president, torn between an old world order and a new one in the very same week that his own fate as president was to be decided by the American people.

This is a revelatory history of these dramatic events and people, for the first time setting both crises in the context of the global Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the treacherous power politics of imperialism and oil. Blood and Sand resonates strikingly with the problems of oil control, religious fundamentalism, and international unity that face the world today, and is essential reading for anyone concerned with the state of the modern Middle East and Europe.

Blood and Sand includes 25-30 black-and-white photographs.

About this title

Review:

This is history as multiple, interconnected biography . . . placing the behavior and feelings of a few key players at the center of a tumultuous moment in history. ---"New York Times Book Review" on "Indian Summer""

Stirring von Tunzelmann s brisk narrative is propelled forward by the personalities of five memorable individuals who all wanted and worked for independence absorbingly readable. --"Fortune" on "Indian Summer""

Irreistible . . . A fascinating book that may well change how we look on the benighted world in which we live today. --"Los Angeles Times" on "Indian Summer""

Suitcases full of cash, torture chambers, gunboats, coups, dictatorship, and revolutionary fervor spill out of these pages . Captures the missile crisis as a frightening and real dance of knives in a dusty Caribbean cockfighting square. --"Washington Post" on "Red Heat""

Irresistible . . . A fascinating book that may well change how we look on the benighted world in which we live today. --"Los Angeles Times" on "Indian Summer""

Alex van Tunzelmann s "Blood and Sand" is a riveting re-evaluation of the Cold War crises of 1956: Suez and Hungary. Anchored with fresh documentary evidence, Tunzelmann has written a definitive history of these crucial events. A real page-turner and monument to first-rate scholarship. Highly recommended! --Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University and author of "Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America""

Anchored with fresh documentary evidence, "Blood and Sand" is a riveting re-evaluation of the Cold War crises of 1956: Suez and Hungary. Alex von Tunzelmann has written a definitive history of these crucial events - a real page-turner and monument to first-rate scholarship. --Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University and author of "Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America""

A thoroughly well-researched, action-packed, and highly readable account of the two major international crises that shook the world in 1956, Blood and Sand is a fascinating tale of plots and conspiracies, of deception and double-dealing, of bullying and blundering. --Avi Shlaim, author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World"

Gripping.... A timely and insightful must-read for anyone who cares about Middle Eastern history or 20th-century diplomacy. --Library Journal"

Skillfully and artfully integrates the complex, simultaneous Suez and Hungarian crises of 1956 into a single story of Cold War conflict as no one has before. --Publishers Weekly"

About the Author:

Alex von Tunzelmann is the author of Blood and Sand, Indian Summer, and Red Heat. She lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 006224924X
• ISBN 13: 9780062249241
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 534