**A Times History Book of the Year 2022**

From the #1 bestselling historian Max Hastings ‘the heart-stopping story of the missile crisis’ Daily Telegraph

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the most perilous event in history, when mankind faced a looming nuclear collision between the United States and Soviet Union. During those weeks, the world gazed into the abyss of potential annihilation.

Max Hastings’s graphic new history tells the story from the viewpoints of national leaders, Russian officers, Cuban peasants, American pilots and British disarmers. Max Hastings deploys his accustomed blend of eye-witness interviews, archive documents and diaries, White House tape recordings, top-down analysis, first to paint word-portraits of the Cold War experiences of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Nikita Khrushchev’s Russia and Kennedy’s America; then to describe the nail-biting Thirteen Days in which Armageddon beckoned.

Hastings began researching this book believing that he was exploring a past event from twentieth century history. He is as shocked as are millions of us around the world, to discover that the rape of Ukraine gives this narrative a hitherto unimaginable twenty-first century immediacy. We may be witnessing the onset of a new Cold War between nuclear-armed superpowers.

To contend with today’s threat, which Hastings fears will prove enduring, it is critical to understand how, sixty years ago, the world survived its last glimpse into the abyss. Only by fearing the worst, he argues, can our leaders hope to secure the survival of the planet.

Max Hastings, the bestselling author, masterfully recounts the Cuban Missile Crisis in ABYSS, providing a unique perspective on the Soviet Union's role in this pivotal moment in history. His in-depth exploration of 20th century warfare and nuclear threats offers a chilling reminder of the potential for global annihilation.

For fans of Al Murray (Arnhem), Stephen Fisher (Sword Beach), Damien Lewis (SAS Daggers Drawn), Antony Beevor (D-Day), and Peter Caddick-Adams (Monte Cassino).

HarperCollins 2022

Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962