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Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century
 
 

Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century (Paperback)

by David Reynolds (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (3 Jul 2008)
  • ISBN-10: 0141026081
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141026084
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.8 x 1.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 85,165 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
In this incisive and readable book, David Reynolds takes us from the Babylonians right up to Blair and Bush, but the core of his account is six case studies of modern summitry. Using the records of the meetings, he explores how world leaders saw their opponents and how they played their own cards. He also reconstructs the enormous physical and emotional pressures upon them during encounters that could spell life or death for millions. The pioneer of modern summitry was Neville Chamberlain, whose dramatic flights to meet Hitler in September 1938 set patterns and taught lessons for all who followed. Some of the meetings involve a trio of leaders – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta in 1945; Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat at Camp David in 1978 – but the heart of the story are three superpower duels that span the Cold War. Drawing on newly-opened archives, Reynolds examines the disastrous face-off between Kennedy and Khrushchev at Vienna in 1961, which helped spark the Cuban missile crisis and America’s disastrous war in Vietnam. He looks at the Moscow summit between Nixon and Brezhnev in 1972, which began a promising era of détente but whose Machiavellian negotiation by Nixon and Kissinger also helped ensure détente’s decline. By contrast, the Reagan-Gorbachev summit at Geneva in 1985 began a series of summits that brought the Cold War to a peaceful end. From it Reynolds draws larger lessons for successful summitry. Written with verve and insight by a prize-winning international historian, Summits takes us into the minds of statesmen caught up in a bizarre mixture of competition and camaraderie as they stand, for a moment, on top of the world.

About the Author
David Reynolds, FBA, is Professor of International History at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Christ’s College. He has held visiting positions at Harvard and at Nihon University in Tokyo. He is the author or editor of ten books on aspects of twentieth-century history, including One World Divisible: A Global History since 1945 (2000) and In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (2004) which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize. Both of these books are available as Penguin paperbacks. Summits is linked to a BBC TV series written and presented by David Reynolds.

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, 7 Feb 2008
By Mr. F. L. Dunkin Wedd - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
I loved this book.

Its avowed intent is to examine six major political summits from the late 20th century, to analyse them in detail, and to draw conclusions about what makes a summit successful or otherwise.

It does this brilliantly. Reynolds' mastery of the archive material is obvious: he draws together the threads in a concise and intelligible way that shows he knows exactly what he is talking about.

But it does much more. In looking at these six summits, one is given a completely new sidelight on the history of the late 20th century in a most fascinating way.

Negatives? Well, I suppose if you are more interested in the history of social trends, this might not be for you. But if, like me, you think that 'history is about chaps', you will love this book.

Reynolds has of course examined the career of Churchill in a previous book, and perhaps a little extra - one hesitates to say undue - prominence is therefore given to him.

And one may not entirely concur with his conclusions. For example, was Churchill REALLY taken in by Stalin at Yalta? Just because he said something publicly, or in correspondence to the US, doesn't mean he believed it himself: perhaps he was just cooperating with the inevitable? It seems a harsh judgment on him to say that with the Iron Curtain speech 'he repackaged himself as a robust Cold Warrior'.

But even if you quibble with details, the book is so well-argued and so cogently constructed that it cannot fail to stimulate and fascinate. And it is full of new material that has not previously been available for analysis.

What a pity, then, that it is over-endowed with editorial errors - most tragically in the final sentence:

"And as story [sic] of Blair and Bush reminds us, summitry still has the power to shape the course of history." Shouldn't there be a THE in there somewhere?!

Some of the errors seriously compromise the meaning, so this is a serious criticism. Editorial carelessness of this kind is unworthy of a book of this quality. Why do I so often find myself hoping that publishers will get someone to proofread the next edition? Sigh.

So nul points for Messrs Penguin - and 5 stars for the author. I await the forthcoming TV programmes with anticipation.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, 28 Jan 2008
By Mr. F. L. Dunkin Wedd - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
I loved this book.

Its avowed intent is to examine six major political summits from the late 20th century, to analyse them in detail, and to draw conclusions about what makes a summit successful or otherwise.

It does this brilliantly. Reynolds' mastery of the archive material is obvious: he draws together the threads in a concise and intelligible way that shows he knows exactly what he is talking about.

But it does much more. In looking at these six summits, one is given a completely new sidelight on the history of the late 20th century in a most fascinating way.

Negatives? Well, I suppose if you are more interested in the history of social trends, this might not be for you. But if, like me, you think that 'history is about chaps', you will love this book.

Reynolds has of course examined the career of Churchill in a previous book, and perhaps a little extra - one hesitates to say undue - prominence is therefore given to him.

And one may not entirely concur with his conclusions. For example, was Churchill REALLY taken in by Stalin at Yalta? Just because he said something publicly, or in correspondence to the US, doesn't mean he believed it himself: perhaps he was just cooperating with the inevitable? It seems a harsh judgment on him to say that with the Iron Curtain speech 'he repackaged himself as a robust Cold Warrior'.

But even if you quibble with details, the book is so well-argued and so cogently constructed that it cannot fail to stimulate and fascinate. And it is full of new material that has not previously been available for analysis.

What a pity, then, that it is over-endowed with editorial errors - most tragically in the final sentence:

"And as story [sic] of Blair and Bush reminds us, summitry still has the power to shape the course of history." Shouldn't there be a THE in there somewhere?!

Some of the errors seriously compromise the meaning, so this is a serious criticism. Editorial carelessness of this kind is unworthy of a book of this quality. Why do I so often find myself hoping that publishers will get someone to proofread the next edition? Sigh.

So nul points for Messrs Penguin - and 5 stars for the author. I await the forthcoming TV programmes with anticipation.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


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