The Russian Revolution

Twelve Days is a riveting day-by-day account of the defining moment of the Cold War--the inspiring but brutally crushed Hungarian Uprising. Victor Sebestyen, a journalist whose own family fled Hungary, gives us a totally fresh account, incorporating newly released official documents, his family's diaries, and eyewitness testimony. We witness the thrilling first days when--armed only with a few rifles, petrol bombs, and desperate courage--the people of Budapest rose up against their Soviet masters and nearly succeeded. As the world watched in amazement, it looked as though the Hungarians might humble the Soviet empire. But the Soviets were willing to resort to brutal lengths--and, sadly, the West was prepared to let them. Dramatic, vivid, and authoritative, Twelve Days adds immeasurably to our understanding of this historic event and reminds us of the unquenchable human desire for freedom.

'Sebestyen reminds us once again why he is one of the best historians writing today' ANDREW ROBERTS, author of Churchill: Walking with DestinyIn the years after the First World War, Berlin was - as Vladimir Nabokov described it - a place 'of dangerous glamour and worldliness, of tawdry cynicism, where art and riot flourished side by side.'The Weimar Republic was Germany's postwar experiment with democracy, and a time of unprecedented cultural, intellectual and artistic freedom. Berlin was at the cutting edge of quantum physics and psychoanalysis; its nightlife showcased grand opera and dissolute cabaret. Bauhaus architecture and modernist painting flourished, and it rivalled Hollywood as a capital of film. But beneath the glamour was a deeply polarised society of extremes plagued by economic disasters, populist leaders fuelling culture wars, and an uneasy political settlement that would soon spawn the horrors of Nazism.Covering fifteen years from the end of the First World War to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933, Weimar Germany tells the definitive story of Germany's interwar republic and descent into fascism. Featuring an extraordinary cast of characters including Vladimir Nabokov, Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, Adolf Hitler, Billy Wilder, Thomas Mann, Joseph Goebbels, Christopher Isherwood and Rosa Luxemburg, Weimar Germany is a gripping and evocative account of how the fledgling German democracy died.