Suez, Hungary, and Sixteen Days of Crisis That Changed the World
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Published Aug 2016
480 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
Essential to our understanding of the modern Middle East, Blood and Sand resonates powerfully with the problems of oil control, religious fundamentalism and international unity that face the world today.
Over sixteen extraordinary days in October and November 1956, the twin crises of 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 is a revelatory new history of these dramatic events, for the first time setting both crises in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the treacherous power politics of imperialism and oil. Blood and Sand tells this story hour by hour, with a fascinating cast of characters including Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anthony Eden, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nikita Khrushchev, Christian Pineau, Imre Nagy and David Ben-Gurion. It is 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.
"If fact-filled narrative were all there was to historical writing, this book would be unsurpassed; history being more than chronicle, the book suffers as a result." - Publishers Weekly
"The author lays bare at every turn the arrogance, complacency, incompetence, and wishful thinking that drove British and French decisions in a story that could appear as comedy were it not for the death, destruction, and diplomatic wreckage that resulted. A fine new account of an unnecessary crisis." - Kirkus
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alex von Tunzelmann was educated at Oxford and lives in London. She is the author of Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire and Red Heat. She has been recognized as a Financial Times Young Business Writer of the Year. Tunzelmann writes Reel History, a weekly column about historical movies for The Guardian Film Online.
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