History and Foreign Affairs Roundtable Discussion &Book Club

A harrowing account of the Cuban missile crisis and how the US and USSR came to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. Plokhy vividly traces the tortuous decision-making by John Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro.

Nuclear war was ultimately avoided due to the realization and fear that escalation on either the Soviets’ or the Americans’ part would lead to mutual destruction. As today’s world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes, the Cuban missile crisis offers lessons for a new atomic age.

"What makes this the definitive history is Mr Plokhy’s telling of the tale in gripping detail from the Soviet perspective.... It is the picture Mr Plokhy paints of the complete failure of the key decision-makers to get inside the minds of their counterparts that is most telling.... With his masterly book, Mr Plokhy has sounded a warning bell."
― The Economist

Author Bill Browder became Putin’s number one enemy when he succeeded in getting Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act. Red Notice tells in thrilling style how Browder exposed corruption in Putin's Russia and barely escaped with his life.

His Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky wasn’t so lucky - he was falsely accused, jailed and beaten to death. Browder went on a crusade to uncover and punish those responsible for his lawyer’s murder.