Blood and sand : Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower's campaign for peace

Title:

Author:

Von Tunzelmann, Alex, 1977- author.

Publication Information:

New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2016]

Edition:

First edition.

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

xvi, 534 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Contents:

"I want him murdered" -- "We must keep the Americans really frightened" -- The hammer and sickle torn out -- A plan on a cigarette packet -- Bloody Thursday -- The two musketeers -- The Omega Plan -- No picnic -- "Sandstorms in the desert" -- Ultimatum -- Perfidious Albion -- "There is something the matter with him" -- "Love to Nasty" -- "Help the burglar, shoot the householder" -- Reaping the whirlwind -- "Hit 'em with everything in the bucket" -- Back down -- "The curse of the pharaohs" -- Fates.

Summary:

"A revelatory popular history that tells the story of 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"--From dust jacket.

Personal Subject:

Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969.

Subject Term:

Cold War.

Sinai Campaign, 1956.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Foreign relations -- 1953-1961.

Hungary -- History -- Revolution, 1956.

Egypt -- History -- Intervention, 1956.

ISBN:

9780062249241

Document ID:

SD_ILS:2906721

Availability:

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Summary

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.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

British historian von Tunzelmann (Red Heat) 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. Her day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour, staging of events and of the characters who caused and managed them is a deeply researched achievement. If there's a pivot to the book, it's U.K. Prime Minister Anthony Eden's unhinged feelings about Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose government seized and blocked the Suez Canal. But the Soviet-American military stakes were probably higher in Hungary, whose tragic fate was left to Soviet brutality. That neither crisis precipitated world war was thanks in large part to the Eisenhower administration's determination, in the midst of Ike's reelection campaign, not to aid Britain, France, and Israel in reversing Nasser's canal seizure, and its less defensible decision to leave Hungary to its fate. Snappy prose and revealing evidence carry the often riveting story along. But it's hard to find an argument, idea, or interpretation anywhere in the book-that is, to learn von Tunzelmann's considered views. 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. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* In the fall of 1956, within a span of two weeks, two simmering crises exploded into armed conflict in Egypt and Hungary, threatening a direct confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and exerting immense influence on the subsequent history of Europe and the Middle East. On October 29th, Israel, determined to drive back Arab guerrilla fighters attacking Israeli settlements, invaded the Sinai peninsula and drove the Egyptian army back towards the Suez Canal. Two days later, Britain and France invaded Egypt, claiming that they intended to separate the warring parties. But Israel, Britain, and France had actually conspired in the joint invasion, with Britain and France hoping to reverse Egyptian leader Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal. Von Tunzelmann views this as an effort of the two imperialist nations to strengthen their declining roles in world affairs. The British and French forces quickly became bogged down. On November 4th, the Soviets, convinced that Western powers were distracted, sent massive forces into Hungary to crush a popular, anticommunist revolt. Von Tunzelmann deftly describes and links these twin struggles and offers excellent profiles of the key players, including Nasser and Eisenhower, shown here as the true hero for his wisdom and restraint. This is an outstanding reexamination of these sad, history-altering events.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2016 Booklist

Library Journal Review

Offering a day-by-day accounting of the international crisis over the Suez Canal in 1956, this latest work by Tunzelmann (Indian Summer) explains the canal's profound importance and consequence for Egypt, Israel, England, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Arguably, the most significant part of this gripping tale is the role of President Dwight Eisenhower although other pivotal actors are critically analyzed: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, French Prime Minister Guy Mollet, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Eisenhower, soon to face his 1956 reelection campaign, clearly relished the historical linkage with the likes of Great Britain and France, yet desired no war, conventional or nuclear, to assist those nations in either maintaining or expanding their respective empires. At the hands of Tunzelmann, Eisenhower is portrayed as the most levelheaded of the leaders, while Eden is cast in a more negative light. Readers will realize global actors don't solve problems so much as they do their best to cope with them. VERDICT This convincingly argued book is a timely and insightful must-read for anyone who cares about Middle Eastern history or 20th-century diplomacy, as well as students of global -affairs.-Stephen Kent Shaw, Northwest Nazarene Coll., Nampa, ID © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review