Cuban Missile Crisis

Jonathan Colman teaches international and US history at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, England. He is the author of A ‘Special Relationship’? Harold Wilson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Anglo-American Relations ‘at the Summit’, 1964-68 (2004), and The Foreign Policy of Lyndon B. Johnson: The United States and the World, 1963-69 (2010). He has also published numerous articles in leading peer-reviewed journals.

Despite the Cuban Missile Crisis being one of the most studied episodes of Cold War confrontation, Colman’s book is a welcome addition. It provides an excellent overview and will be useful for those unfamiliar with the crisis or looking for an accessible introduction. It will be particularly expedient for undergraduate students as, in addition to the discerning analysis, the appendices provide a chronology of events, short biographies of the major players and a selection of 16 key documents, which elucidate aspects of the main arguments. It will also be welcomed by experts in American foreign policy and the international history of the Cold War more broadly, through an engagement with the most recent research and scholarship on the crisis. Colman’s Cuban Missile Crisis is an accessible and eminently readable book for anyone with an interest in the global perspective of one of the most important international events during the Cold War era.

• Introduction1. The United States, the Cuban Revolution and the Cold War, 1959-612. The Decision to Base Nuclear Missiles in Cuba, Spring-Summer 19623. Discovering the Missile Bases, 14-22 October 19624. Confrontation, 22-25 October 19625. A World Crisis, 22-28 October 19626. Nadir and Resolution, 26-28 October 19627. Aftermath I, November-December 19628. Aftermath II, 1963-70ConclusionAppendix 1: List of PersonsAppendix 2: ChronologyAppendix 3: BiographiesAppendix 4: Documents