- Published: 25 July 2012
- ISBN: 9780241961759
- Imprint: Penguin eBooks
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 608
Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khruschev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth
- Published: 25 July 2012
- ISBN: 9780241961759
- Imprint: Penguin eBooks
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 608
Fast-paced, dramatic ... a great story. Both an enriching history and a rollicking good read
Washington Post
Fascinating ... A fine example of intelligent popular history. In concentrating on the clash between JFK and Krushchev, he does not crudely personalise the conflict. Rather he uses the differing ... situations of these two extraordinary men to strip away appearances and reveal the power realities
Frederick Taylor, Financial Times
Kempe ... has taken on a monumental task and succeeded. The story-telling is masterful, both entertaining and elucidating. The story itself is one to provoke grievance and fury across generations
Washington Independent Review of Books
[A] mind-shaking work of investigative history
Wall Street Journal
History at its best. Kempe's book masterfully dissects the Cold War's strategically most significant East-West confrontation, and in the process significantly enlightens our understanding of the complexity of the Cold War itself
Zbigniew Brzezinski (National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter)
The genius at the heart of this gripping work resembles that of a play by Schiller or Shakespeare
Financial Times
Well researched and lucidly written. What interests [Kempe] is not really Berlin but Washington and Moscow; we learn ... a great deal about the machinations of the two superpowers
Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
Berlin 1961 is a page-turner, written with all the vigour and verve of a spy novel, so you will have difficulty in putting it down until you have finished its 500 pages of gripping narrative
International Affairs
A gripping, well-researched, and thought-provoking book with many lessons for today
Henry Kissinger
Kempe has masterfully captured the dramatic dimensions of a great story that shaped the world order for twenty-eight years. Berlin 1961 is an important achievement
Chuck Hagel
An amazing drama ... Kempe's compelling narrative is a triumph of great writing and research
Walter Isaacson (President and CEO, The Aspen Institute)
Engaging, richly researched, thought-provoking ... combines the 'You are there' storytelling skills of a journalist, the analytical skills of the political scientist, and the historian's use of declassified U.S., Soviet, and German documents to provide unique insight into the forces and individuals behind these events
General Brent Scowcroft (National Security Advisor to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush)
Kempe's compelling narrative, astute analysis, and meticulous research bring fresh insight into a crucial and perilous episode of the Cold War, bringing Kennedy and Khrushchev to life as they square off at the brink of nuclear war. His masterly telling of a scary and cautionary tale from half a century ago has the immediacy of today's headlines
Strobe Talbott (President, Brookings Institution)
Takes us to Ground Zero of the Cold War. Reading these pages, you feel as if you are standing at Checkpoint Charlie, amid the brutal tension of a divided Berlin
David Ignatius