RaveTimes Literary Supplement (UK)Hastings is generous to a fault in acknowledging the work others have done before him, yet he is the right person to tell this story: he has few peers as an expert in military and diplomatic history, and few historians have his ability to write a narrative that is at once deeply researched, incisively intelligent and compulsively readable. Abyss is as tight and smart as any account, and will earn pride of place even on a shelf already packed with books about the crisis ... Perhaps the book’s most interesting contribution is its reassessment of the key figures, for this really was a historical moment driven by personality, which turned on individual decisions.
Fredrik Logevall
RaveThe Spectator (UK)It is a testament to Logevall’s talents as a writer and historian that he’s able to demystify JFK the legend but keep John F. Kennedy the person interesting. He allows us to delve into the world of the Kennedy family and be swept along by the story without getting carried away by the myth. Logevall is an elegant stylist ... At its heart, Logevall’s JFK is a story about World War Two, which takes up roughly half the book. This is fitting, for the war made JFK who he was ... Such are Logevall’s storytelling powers that, even though we all know the outcome, it still feels like a cliffhanger.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
