When Angels Wept: A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
キューバ危機が核戦争へ発展していたら、という仮定を歴史研究に基づいて描く改変歴史小説。ソ連崩壊後に明らかになった資料を踏まえ、冷戦の一触即発の瞬間が別の選択をたどった世界を検証する。
作品情報
キューバ危機が最悪の扉を開いた世界を、歴史の細部から組み上げる。
『When Angels Wept』は、キューバ危機が平和的解決に向かわず、米ソの軍事衝突へ進んだ場合を描く改変歴史小説。実際の危機で存在した戦略核、戦術核、政治的誤算を物語の土台にし、世界がどれほど薄い境界の上に立っていたかを浮かび上がらせる。
レビュー要約
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歴史家らしい細部の積み上げと、危機が軍事的・政治的に連鎖していく説得力が評価されている。展開の重さはあるが、冷戦史を知る読者ほど緊張感を味わえる。
書籍情報
- 出版社
- Potomac Books Inc
- 発売日
- 2010-06-02
- ページ数
- 307ページ
- 言語
- 英語
- サイズ
- 16.28 x 2.82 x 23.44 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781597975179
- ISBN-10
- 1597975176
- 価格
- 8256 JPY
- カテゴリ
- 洋書/History/Americas/Caribbean & West Indies/Cuba
In 1961 at the Bay of Pigs, CIA-trained and -organized Cuban exiles aiming to overthrow Fidel Castro were soundly defeated. Most were taken prisoner by Cuban armed forces. Fearing another U.S. invasion of its new ally, the Soviet Union sneaked into Cuba strategic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads and Soviet troops armed with tactical nuclear weapons. However, a U-2 spy plane flight would soon find the Soviet missile sites, thus sparking the famous missile crisis. For thirteen terrifying days, the world watched nervously as the two superpowers moved toward escalation, holding the worlds fate in their hands. Finally, Nikita Khrushchev blinked. He agreed to withdraw the weapons from Cuba in return for John F. Kennedys pledge not to invade the island. But what if it had not turned out this way? What if the U-2 flight had been delayed? If the confrontation had set off a nuclear war, what would have happened to the United States and Soviet Union in 1962? What kind of account would a historian have written in a world scarred by nuclear war? Eric G. Swedin draws on research made available after the Soviet Unions collapse to examine what could have happened. Top U.S. military officers all urged stronger action against Cuba than the naval blockade, including a bombing campaign and even a full-scale invasion. Unknown to the Americans, meanwhile, the Soviet Union had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba and were prepared to use them. The 1962 crisis had many possible outcomes. Positing an alternate history helps us better appreciate the dangers of that tense time. Such counterfactual speculation shows what the Cuban missile crisis could have wrought and how it was truly one of the most important moments of the twentieth century.
Eric G. Swedin is an associate professor of information systems technologies at Weber State University and the author of four books, including Computers: The Lift Story of a Technology. He lives near Ogden, Utah.
レビュー
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An unusually interesting twist on history.
First of all, Eric Swedin is a friend of mine; we've known each other as writers for several years. But speculative or alternative history is not a genre you'll find much of on my bookshelf, so I opened this book not knowing what to expect. The first few chapters of the book recount Cold War history that most well-read people will be familiar with, with occasional forays into earlier times to set the stage. Then, Eric starts sneaking in hints of what's to come, and soon you're immersed in a world in which the Cuban missile crisis went altogether wrong. Still, the history he creates is informed by facts and details that demonstrate the "reality" of his what-might-have-been. All very interesting. But here's what interested me most. Eric writes the book as though he were a professor of history at an Australian University, so the tone is very straightforward. Yet he manages to build tension and drama and page-turning curiosity despite the deliberate, dispassionate prose. A difficult job for a writer, and Eric manages it masterfully. The result is an interesting and unexpectedly exciting book that's well worth reading.
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great book
It's really good. It makes you think about close this world came to nuclear fire. He does a good job of explaining the missile gap and the bomber gap.
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My opinion
It meet my expectatives, more than that. It gave a thorough explanation of real facts and link it with what would have happened if the crisis have not been averted
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A Good First Novel
This was better than I expected and I read a lot of Harry Turtledove and Peter G. Tsouras, as alternate history is one of my favorite genres. I actually found the back story interesting, although I have read both One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War (Vintage) and DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis . In particular, I thought the author did an excellent job of projecting how Khrushchev would likely have tied together the Cuban situation with Berlin. The author also does an admirable job of integrating the character vignettes with his overall narrative. I rate books by how hard they are to put down, and I read this one in two days. If you like Resurrection Day, which I did, you will like this book. J.Lenaburg
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Interesting What-if
This is a very interesting novel. This first part follows the real-life events of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. The second half of the novel is the author's opinion on how the hypothetical war could have been executed. More experienced authors might have been allowed to expand by fleshing out the characters and introducing them to the first part. It looks like the author relied on historical events to tell the first part and then kept the same format in telling the second. Don't get me wrong - it is still an entertaining novel and especially points out how hawklike the US military was to prosecute this war. Very chilling as this reviewer lived it as an 8 yr old boy.
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