Gambling With ArmageddonGambling With Armageddon

Sherwin sets the Cuban Missile Crisis, with its potential for nuclear holocaust, in a wider historical narrative of the Cold War: how such a crisis arose, and why at the very last possible moment it didn't happen. He gives us a riveting explanation of the crisis itself, while also exploring the origins, scope, and consequences of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the post WWII world. Sherwin looks in particular at the original debate in the Truman Administration about using the Atomic Bomb; the way in which President Eisenhower relied on the threat of massive retaliation to project U.S. power in the early Cold War era; and how President Kennedy, though unprepared to deal with the Bay of Pigs debacle, came of age during the Cuban Missile Crisis.