Sound and fury
Russian musician Mstislav Rostropovich conducts in London, 1988. Two decades earlier his decision to play Czech composer Antonín DvoÅ™ák's Cello Concerto at the Proms expressed his anger at the Soviet invasion that crushed the 1968 Prague Spring
The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind by Martin Sixsmith Profile, 592 pages, £25
With this impressively ambitious and wide-ranging study, Martin Sixsmith former BBC correspondent in Moscow and author of such works as Philomena and Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East - adds a fascinating chapter to Cold War scholarship.
Sixsmith does a good job of presenting the essential narrative of the Cold War. He covers its post-Second World War inception in the Truman-Stalin years, as well as other key events including the Cuban missile crisis the 1962 military standoff that brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear conflict - and the Vietnam War. The improvement in relations between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s is also explored, as well as the ending of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet empire in eastern Europe and the fall of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.
Rather than provide a traditional diplomatic history of the Cold War years, though, Sixsmith develops a thematically rich and diverse work that explores, in particular, the psychological dimension of the Soviet-American contest.
The author delves into many instances of the psychological aspect of the conflict. For example, he discusses the work of Freud when considering how individuals replaced a sense of self with loyalty to an authoritarian leader such as Stalin. And he examines in detail the use of psychological warfare by the CIA, established by Harry Truman in 1947.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة January 2022 من BBC History Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة January 2022 من BBC History Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
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Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies weren’t in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well – always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadn’t moved for weeks.
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It’s election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson.
