Gambling with Armageddon

(Paperback)

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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus comes the first effort to set 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 never happened. "Fresh and thrilling.... A fascinating work of history that is very relevant to today's politics." -Walter Isaacson,bestselling author of The Code Breaker Pulitzer Prize-winning author Martin J. Sherwin introduces a dramatic new view of how luck and leadership avoided a nuclear holocaust during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Set within the sweep of the Cold War and its nuclear history, every chapter of this gripping narrative of the origins and resolution of history's most dangerous thirteen days offers lessons and a warning for our time. Gambling with Armageddon presents a riveting, page turning account of the crisis as well as an original exploration of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the Post-World War II world.

Reviews

**Kirkus Reviews "The Best Books of the Year"**

[This] book should become the definitive account of its subject. The New York Times

In this riveting book, Sherwin provides a fresh and thrilling account of the Cuban Missile Crisis and also puts it into historical perspective. With great new material, he shows the effect of nuclear arms on global affairs, starting with the decision to bomb Hiroshima. It is a fascinating work of history that is very relevant to todays politics. Walter Isaacson, author of Leonardo da Vinci

Engrossing . . . Forget everything you think you know about how close the world came to nuclear war, then read this superb new book that completely upends the mythology of those critical weeks in October 1962 . . . From the opening pages [Sherwin] draws the reader into the immediacy of the Crisis . . . Should make everyone who reads it and was born after October 1962 extremely thankful to be alive. Jerry D. Lenaburg, New York Journal of Books

"Intricately detailed, vividly written, and nearly Tolstoyan in scope, Sherwins account reveals just how close the Cold War came to boiling over. History buffs will be enthralled. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A fresh examination of the Cuban missile crisis and its wider historical context, showing how the U.S. avoided nuclear war . . . Makes it clear how national leaders bumbled through the crisis, avoiding nuclear Armageddon through modest amounts of wisdom mixed with plenty of machismo, delusions, and serendipity . . . A fearfully convincing case that avoiding nuclear war is contingent on the worlds dwindling reservoir of good luck. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Examines nuclear policy as it evolved in the Cold War, culminating with the chillingly suspenseful week-long drama of the Cuban Missile Crisis . . . Grounded in an exceptional and up-to-date knowledge of the military, diplomatic, and individual components of American and Soviet politics. Mark Levine, Booklist (starred review)

In Gambling with Armageddon Martin J. Sherwin summarizes the official narrative of the thirteen days as follows. Members of ExComm, through their careful consideration of the challenge, their firmness in the face of terrifying danger, and their wise counsel, steered the world to a peaceful resolution of a potentially civilization-ending conflict. Nothing, he writes, could be further from the truth. Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker

One of our ablest chroniclers of the larger-than-life personalities and lasting environmental effects of the nuclear age. Marc Ambinder, The American Scholar

A thrilling account of the tension-filled days when the world teetered on the edge of nuclear apocalypse. Drawing on new sources, Martin Sherwin shows how the Cuban missile crisis grew out of the nuclear sabre-rattling of the Cold War, going all the way back to the early confrontations between Truman and Stalin. No one is better equipped to tell this story than Sherwin, who has devoted his life to thinking about Armageddon,as witnessed by his ground-breaking biography of Robert Oppenheimer. A splendid accomplishment and a great read! Michael Dobbs, author of One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War

"Gambling with Armageddon will have a powerful and lasting impact because it does things that no other study does in an area that could not be more significant. Sherwin makes clear that the Cuban missile crisis was not really an aberration but an unsurprising outcome of the history and psychology world leaders brought to the weapons. We also learn how much mere chancegood lucksaved us from world-ending catastrophe. Sherwin has written a book that matters deeply, and has made an elegantly convincing argument for the abolition of nuclear weapons." Robert Jay Lifton, author of Losing Reality

This is what happens when one of the pioneers of nuclear historyone who researches broadly, thinks deeply, and writes beautifullycomes to grips with the most dangerous moment in human history. The result gives us a new understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the broader context of the nuclear age and reminds us, even decades later, how dangerous our nuclear arsenals remain. Gambling with Armageddon is essential reading. Philip Nash, author of The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957-1963

Martin Sherwins beautiful account shows how the crisis grew out of the brinkmanship of the Cold War. He brings to life the main characters and examines with a marvelous combination of empathy and a critical intelligence, the decisions that Kennedy and Khrushchev faced and the choices they made. This is by far the best book on the crisis and a book of great relevance for today. David Holloway, author of Stalin and the Bomb

It is difficult to believe that there is something fresh to say about the Cuban Missile Crisis. But Martin Sherwin has accomplished this feat. By meticulously reconstructing the decision-making process of October 1962 and placing the crisis fully in the context of Cold War atomic diplomacy he enables us to understand how the world came to the brink of destruction, how unprepared political and military leaders were for the crisis, and how level-headed officials rejected the fantasies of would-be warriors and drew back from disaster. And all this is presented with drama, eloquence, and even humor. Eric Foner, author of The Second Founding

People describe news you can use. Well, heres history you can use. Who knew that events 58 years ago could so resonate with events todayAnd, no doubt,tomorrow.I've read countlesstomeson theCuban Missile Crisis, and wrangled about it personally with Fidel Castro in 1994. But no one has, or could, reciteand re-interpret those terrifying days as well as Martin Sherwin. In a nutshell, this is a marvelous bookriveting, revealing, quite remarkable. I stand awedby the scholarship, and the beautiful writing. Though Dr. Sherwin and I differ ideologically (by alot!), I find this book totally fair, and beautifully balanced. So read the book, and you, too, will be educated, entertained, and inspired. Kenneth Adelman, Reagan Arms Control Director and author of Reagan at Reykjavik

"Martin Sherwin has set the standard for writing the history of the ultimate weapons, the atomic and nuclear bombs. This book, his magnum opus, exploits U.S., Russian, and other recently opened documents to give the 1945 to early 1962 background, and the potentially cataclysmic debates and diplomatic exchanges of the Cuban missile crisis itself. That crisis continues to be the historical reference point for our current debates about the possibility of nuclear war. The 1962 events produced sleepless nights for Americans, and so can reading this book about how closethe Americans and Russianscame to creating nuclear winter on earth." Walter LaFeber,Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, Cornell University

"A page-turning account . . . Offers a masterful reinterpretation of the first decades of the Cold War. Switching perspectives gracefully between American and Soviet officials, going up and down the ranks from statesmen to second lieutenants, Sherwin distills decades of reading, writing, and thinking into a chilling, persuasiveand suspensefulbook." David C. Engerman, Leitner Profressor, Department of History, Yale University

Gambling with Armageddon puts the Cuban Missile Crisis in the proper historical context of the Cold War.Thoroughly researched, and relying on Russian, Cuban, and American sources, it makes a convincing case that only plain dumb luck saved the world back in 1962. A historical tour de force with important lessons for the next, impending nuclear arms race. Gregg Herken, author of Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer,Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller

Martin Sherwin is one of the great historians of the nuclear age . . . Through a vivid and definitive retelling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, based on the latest declassified sources, Sherwin explores how hundreds of millions of lives could easily have been lost. The implications of the story are inescapable." Eric Schlosser, author of Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Brilliant, powerful and terrifying, Sherwins book on the Cuban Missile crisis highlights how close we came to blowing up our planet, how fortunate we were that Kennedy and Khrushchev managed to save us, and how critical it is to have prescient leaders. William H. Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History, Emeritus, Duke University

"Gambling with armageddon offers a precious, powerful and detailed historical examination of the limits of leaders' control over nuclear crises and the role of luck in their outcomes. Examining the first seventeen years of the nuclear age and shedding new light on the Cuban Missile Crisis, it teaches scholars and citizens alike that our tendency to fall for retrospective illusions of control and understanding is inadequate, dangerous and that the leaders of the time were not exempt from them. It also masterfully demonstrates that factors beyond control can and should be studied. This has profound implications for scholarship and policy. Benot Pelopidas, founding director of the Nuclear Knowledges program, SciencesPo, Centre de RecherchesInternationales

"Masterl

Author Bio

MARTIN J. SHERWIN, was University Professor of History atGeorge Mason University andthe author of A World Destroyed- Hiroshima and Its Legacies, winner of the Stuart L. Bernath and the American History Book prizes, and the coauthor, with Kai Bird, of American Prometheus- The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2006 as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Duff Cooper Prize.He died in 2021.