Twelve Days - Softcover

Victor Sebestyen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753822148 ISBN 13: 9780753822142

Publisher: Phoenix, 2007

Synopsis

The defining moment of the Cold War: ''The beginning of the end of the Soviet empire.'' (Richard Nixon)

The Hungarian Revolution in 1956 is a story of extraordinary bravery in a fight for freedom, and of ruthless cruelty in suppressing a popular dream. A small nation, its people armed with a few rifles and petrol bombs, had the will and courage to rise up against one of the world''s superpowers.

The determination of the Hungarians to resist the Russians astonished the West. People of all kinds, throughout the free world, became involved in the cause. For 12 days it looked, miraculously, as though the Soviets might be humbled. Then reality hit back. The Hungarians were brutally crushed. Their capital was devastated, thousands of people were killed and their country was occupied for a further three decades.

The uprising was the defining moment of the Cold War: the USSR showed that it was determined to hold on to its European empire, but it would never do so without resistance. From the Prague Spring to Lech Walesa''s Solidarity and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the tighter the grip of the communist bloc, the more irresistible the popular demand for freedom.

About this title

About the Author

Victor Sebestyen is the acclaimed author ofTWELVE DAYS(W&N, 2006),REVOLUTION 1989(W&N, 2009) and1946(Macmillan, 2014). He was born in Budapest. He was a child when his family left Hungary as refugees. As a journalist, he has worked for numerous British newspapers, including theEVENING STANDARD,DAILY MAILandTHE TIMES. He reported widely from Eastern Europe when Communism collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. He covered the wars in former Yugoslavia and the breakup of the Soviet Union. At theEVENING STANDARDhe was foreign editor, media editor and chief leader writer. He is an associate editor ofNEWSWEEK.

Review

" This is a vivid, heartbreaking account of the brutal crushing of the first armed insurrection against Soviet occupation. "Twelve Days" is essential reading for understanding the great risks people will take for freedom."
- Kati Marton, author of "The Great Escape: Nine Hungarians Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
"
" On the anniversary of 1956, wielding a vast array of newly released archives and completely new eyewitness testimony, Victor Sebestyen has written a magisterial but also totally gripping and fresh account of the noble, violent, and doomed Hungarian revolution: a tale of murder and battles on the streets of Budapest and in the dungeons of the KGB, and of high-level intrigue from the White House to the Kremlin. Above all, it is a story of courage and decency among ordinary Hungarians. The result is a tour de force."
- Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
"

"From the Hardcover edition."

"This is a vivid, heartbreaking account of the brutal crushing of the first armed insurrection against Soviet occupation. "Twelve Days" is essential reading for understanding the great risks people will take for freedom."
-Kati Marton, author of "The Great Escape: Nine Hungarians Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
"
"On the anniversary of 1956, wielding a vast array of newly released archives and completely new eyewitness testimony, Victor Sebestyen has written a magisterial but also totally gripping and fresh account of the noble, violent, and doomed Hungarian revolution: a tale of murder and battles on the streets of Budapest and in the dungeons of the KGB, and of high-level intrigue from the White House to the Kremlin. Above all, it is a story of courage and decency among ordinary Hungarians. The result is a tour de force."
-Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
"

"From the Hardcover edition."

Edition details

• Publisher: Phoenix
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0753822148
• ISBN 13: 9780753822142
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384