NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
Narrator Fred Sanders's voice carries a calm authority as he delivers stories of writers on both sides of the Iron Curtain who dealt with the Cold War in their work. White begins with George Orwell’s escape from leftist secret police in the Spanish Civil War. He also takes listeners on a tour of Soviet gulags and show trials, U.S. blacklists, and literary conferences organized by both sides. Sanders brings the emotions of figures like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Arthur Koestler alive as he tells their stories. The audiobook may leave listeners as distrustful as Orwell. Still, it's hard to resist hearing tidbits like the true story behind Graham Greene's humorous OUR MAN IN HAVANA. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
Brilliant…a marvelous tapestry of postwar literature and politics. Now more than ever we need a book like this to remind us of the importance of writers and the written word.” — Kevin Birmingham, author of The Most Dangerous Book
“A stunning achievement. Duncan White combines deep research, epic sweep, and sparkling writing to give us the best account of the literary Cold War to date.” — Hugh Wilford, author of The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America
“Both profound and profoundly important and as engaging as a gripping Cold War thriller.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A compelling reminder of literature’s influence—and vulnerability—in a world of power politics.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Riveting and insightful.” — Library Journal
“Cold Warriors is a big and brash book at the heart of which is the surprise that all in all, even in these godforsaken times, the pen managed to remain mightier than the sword.” — National Review
“Consistently absorbing.” — Wall Street Journal
“Gripping and lively…Exploring espionage, imprisonment, and authors played like chess pieces by powerful heads of state, White’s book weaves together deeply researched Cold War machinations with a savvy and intelligent look at the literature produced in its midst, who created it, and how.” — Boston Globe
“Cold Warriors reads like a thriller…However, this is also a book about personal and political liberty; about the freedom to write, mock and dissent; about truth, lies and wilful ignorance.” — The Times (UK)
“Fascinating… As in all the best works of nonfiction, comedy and tragedy rub up against each other with wonderful inappropriateness.” — The Sunday Telegraph
“Ambitious and constantly rewarding…A reminder of a time when literature was a life-or-death matter.” — The Spectator
“Definitive…White’s meticulous account of these times unfolds a bit like a thriller itself.” — The Outline
“Easily one of the best literary history books you’ll read in 2019.” — InsideHook
“Irresistible…In the battle over ideas, the pen is truly mightier than the sword.”
— Christian Science Monitor
"Cold Warriors is a formidable, engrossing and almost flawless achievement." — Sydney Morning Herald
"White handles hefty quantities of research effortlessly, combining multiple biographies with a broader overview of the period. His energetic, anecdote-laden prose will have you hooked all the way from Orwell to le Carré." — Sunday Times (London)
“In providing a chronicle of his own and by examining the writings of Arthur Koestler, George Orwell, Mary McCarthy, Stephen Spender, Graham Greene, John le Carré, et al., Duncan White shows us how the Cold War is not just a historical stand-off, but perhaps a literary creation…. An extraordinary book, endlessly thought-provoking and inspiring. I’m deeply jealous. I wish I had written it.” — Errol Morris, Academy Award-winning director of The Fog of War
“One reason the Cold War was won without becoming hot is that some books were as explosive as bombs. Duncan White tells the thrilling story of how some engaged intellectuals sent words into worthy battles.” — George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist at The Washington Post
Kevin Birmingham
Brilliant…a marvelous tapestry of postwar literature and politics. Now more than ever we need a book like this to remind us of the importance of writers and the written word.
National Review
“Cold Warriors is a big and brash book at the heart of which is the surprise that all in all, even in these godforsaken times, the pen managed to remain mightier than the sword.
The Sunday Telegraph
Fascinating… As in all the best works of nonfiction, comedy and tragedy rub up against each other with wonderful inappropriateness.
Booklist (starred review)
A compelling reminder of literature’s influence—and vulnerability—in a world of power politics.
Boston Globe
Gripping and lively…Exploring espionage, imprisonment, and authors played like chess pieces by powerful heads of state, White’s book weaves together deeply researched Cold War machinations with a savvy and intelligent look at the literature produced in its midst, who created it, and how.
Wall Street Journal
Consistently absorbing.
The Times (UK)
Cold Warriors reads like a thriller…However, this is also a book about personal and political liberty; about the freedom to write, mock and dissent; about truth, lies and wilful ignorance.
Hugh Wilford
A stunning achievement. Duncan White combines deep research, epic sweep, and sparkling writing to give us the best account of the literary Cold War to date.
Sunday Times (London)
"White handles hefty quantities of research effortlessly, combining multiple biographies with a broader overview of the period. His energetic, anecdote-laden prose will have you hooked all the way from Orwell to le Carré."
Errol Morris
In providing a chronicle of his own and by examining the writings of Arthur Koestler, George Orwell, Mary McCarthy, Stephen Spender, Graham Greene, John le Carré, et al., Duncan White shows us how the Cold War is not just a historical stand-off, but perhaps a literary creation…. An extraordinary book, endlessly thought-provoking and inspiring. I’m deeply jealous. I wish I had written it.”
George F. Will
One reason the Cold War was won without becoming hot is that some books were as explosive as bombs. Duncan White tells the thrilling story of how some engaged intellectuals sent words into worthy battles.
The Outline
Definitive…White’s meticulous account of these times unfolds a bit like a thriller itself.
InsideHook
Easily one of the best literary history books you’ll read in 2019.
Christian Science Monitor
Irresistible…In the battle over ideas, the pen is truly mightier than the sword.
Sydney Morning Herald
"Cold Warriors is a formidable, engrossing and almost flawless achievement."
The Spectator
Ambitious and constantly rewarding…A reminder of a time when literature was a life-or-death matter.
Wall Street Journal
Consistently absorbing.
National Review
“Cold Warriors is a big and brash book at the heart of which is the surprise that all in all, even in these godforsaken times, the pen managed to remain mightier than the sword.
Booklist (starred review)
A compelling reminder of literature’s influence—and vulnerability—in a world of power politics.
NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
Narrator Fred Sanders's voice carries a calm authority as he delivers stories of writers on both sides of the Iron Curtain who dealt with the Cold War in their work. White begins with George Orwell’s escape from leftist secret police in the Spanish Civil War. He also takes listeners on a tour of Soviet gulags and show trials, U.S. blacklists, and literary conferences organized by both sides. Sanders brings the emotions of figures like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Arthur Koestler alive as he tells their stories. The audiobook may leave listeners as distrustful as Orwell. Still, it's hard to resist hearing tidbits like the true story behind Graham Greene's humorous OUR MAN IN HAVANA. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2019-06-11
During the Cold War, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, writers were warriors, literature a weapon.
Daily Telegraph book reviewer White (History and Literature/Harvard Univ.; Nabokov and His Books, 2017, etc.) returns with a massive, thoroughly researched history of the roles of writers and literature during the Cold War. His focus is not just on the United States and the Soviet Union; he also tells stories about Western Europe and Latin America (there is a chapter on Nicaragua, the Contras, and Ronald Reagan). Many celebrated writers glimmer in these pages, including George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Stephen Spender, Isaac Babel, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene, John le Carré, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Ernest Hemingway. Names probably less familiar to general readers are the Soviet writers Anna Akhmatova and Andrei Sinyavsky. The narrative is mostly chronological, and White shifts focus, chapter by chapter, to various writers and the political realities that they had to face—and endure. He also shows how governments tried to influence (or silence) their own writers and how they tried to use literature both as a weapon and a shield. "The issue of complicity is at the center of this book," he writes. "Every writer in these pages had to grapple with it in one form or another—such was the price to be paid for writing at a time when, to paraphrase historian Giles Scott-Smith, to be apolitical was itself a form of politics." White delivers tales of astonishing courage—e.g., the Czech playwright Václav Havel emerging from persecution and prosecution to become his country's president, Solzhenitsyn sticking firmly to his determination to tell his stories—and of duplicity and betrayal: The story of Kim Philby, the English traitor, is prominent. Many readers will be surprised by the connections among these writers, which White ably highlights: Orwell and Hemingway, Koestler and McCarthy, and so many others. The author also occasionally summarizes now-classic literary works (Animal Farm).
Both profound and profoundly important and as engaging as a gripping Cold War thriller.
