19 used & new from �5.00

See All Buying Options

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Twelve Days: Revolution 1956. How the Hungarians tried to topple their Soviet masters

See larger image

Share your own customer images

Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Twelve Days: Revolution 1956. How the Hungarians tried to topple their Soviet masters (Hardcover)

by Victor Sebestyen (Author)

4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.

11 new from �6.48 8 used from �5.00

Other Editions:	RRP:	Our Price:	Other Offers:
Paperback (New Ed)	�8.99	�6.61	17 used & new from �3.57

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire

by Victor Sebestyen

4.8 out of 5 stars (9) �15.50

Suez 1956: The Inside Story of the First Oil War

by Barry Turner

3.7 out of 5 stars (3) �6.73

Journey to a Revolution: A Personal Memoir and History of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956

by Michael Korda

3.5 out of 5 stars (2) �8.09

Revolution in Hungary: The 1956 Budapest Uprising

by Erich Lessing

�22.61

Khrushchev: The Man and His Era

by William Taubman

4.5 out of 5 stars (4) �6.96

› Explore similar items

Product details

Hardcover: 340 pages
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (10 Aug 2006)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0297847317
ISBN-13: 978-0297847311
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.8 x 4 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 410,717 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

MILITARY ILLUSTRATED

'A powerful and often harrowing book, well worth reading.'

Review

'Masterly... Victor Sebestyen is a marvellous guide to the Hungarian Revolution... His nuanced, intelligent account... is a first class book .' (LITERARY REVIEW )

'superbly researched... very well written... this engrossing book is a powerful adventure story as well as an uplifting morality tale' (Andrew Roberts EVENING STANDARD )

'Sebestyen... draws on most of the public sources judiciously and narrates the tangled history with clarity.' (Tibor Fischer DAILY TELEGRAPH )

'a readable, and even exciting, blend of the scholarly with the journalistic, altogether a fitting commemmoration of the drama' (David Pryce-Jones THE SPECTATOR )

'Sebestyen has done a major good deed by commemorating this hugely important event with a clear straightforward and compelling account' (Peter Hitchens MAIL ON SUNDAY )

'fresh, readable and honest... the story of the Hungarian revolution also demands attention because of its almost disturbing relevance.' (Anne Applebaum SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

'this lucid, highly readable account of the Hungarian Revolution... eschews all cliches to get through to what really happened' (Frank McLynn THE INDEPENDENT )

'Sebestyen dispels many cliches surrounding the uprising' (Marcus Tanner THE TABLET )

'Twelve Days is a triumph both of research and dramatic reconstruction... masterly account of the 1956 uprising.' (Richard Aldous IRISH TIMES )

'Sebestyen's book should become the standard work on the uprising... a gripping read.' (THE ECONOMIST )

'Sebestyen is excellent at bringing to life the revolutionary moment. Personalities leap from his pages...' (FINANCIAL TIMES )

'a gripping, detailed reconstruction of the revolution... excellent' (NEW YORK TIMES )

'well documented... and vividly written.' (LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS )

'A powerful and often harrowing book, well worth reading.' (MILITARY ILLUSTRATED )

See all Product Description

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

(What's this?)

Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)

berlin wall(3)

biography(2)

communism(2)

germany(2)

victor sebestyen(1)

stalinism(1)

1989(1)

all gone to look for america(1)

berlin(1)

gorbachev(1)

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	75% buy the item featured on this page: Twelve Days: Revolution 1956. How the Hungarians tried to topple their Soviet masters 4.6 out of 5 stars (8)
	18% buy Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire 4.8 out of 5 stars (9) �15.50
	3% buy Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall 5.0 out of 5 stars (3) �10.11
	3% buy '89: The Unfinished Revolution: Power and Powerlessness in Eastern Europe 5.0 out of 5 stars (2) �9.09

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

8 Reviews

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.6 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twelve days that shook the world, 7 Jan 2007

By	Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Here, there and everywhere) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

20 October 2006 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, the seemingly spontaneous (at least to those outside Hungary) set of demonstrations that quickly morphed into a full-fledged revolution that almost freed Hungary from Soviet hegemony. Twelve days after it began the revolution was crushed under the tread of Red Army tanks. Victor Sebestyen's "Twelve Days" is an informative and well-written examination of the revolution, its causes and its consequences.

Twelve Days is divided into three parts: "Prelude", "Revolution" and "Aftermath". In the Prelude Sebestyen provides a concise history of Hungary in the first half of the twentieth century. This is an invaluable introduction for readers, such as this reviewer, who have not previously immersed themselves in Hungarian history. After the First World War and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles, Hungary came to be ruled by a fascist regime led by Admiral Horthy. Hungary under Horthy became an ally of Hitler's Germany and found itself at war with the Allied Powers, most importantly the USSR. Toward the end of the Second World War, the German Army occupied Hungary and fought a desperate battle against the Red Army. The 100 day siege and conquest of Budapest was brutal and the damage to Budapest was exceeded only by the damage done to Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Warsaw. (Krisztian Ungvary's "The Siege of Budapest" makes an excellent companion volume to Twelve Days). Sebestyen then takes the reader through the immediate post-World War II years in which the Hungarian Communist Party, under the leadership of Matyas Rakosi gradually seized total control of the reins of power. Sebestyen's description of the brutality of Rakosi, who fancied himself as something of a Stalin-prot�g� follows. Rakosi's brutality, which rivaled that of Stalin's, laid the groundwork for the 1956 uprising. As noted by Sebestyen, Stalin's death and Khrushchev's denunciation of the cult of Stalin left many Hungarian's feeling that the time was ripe for liberalization and it is with this feeling in mind that Sebestyen begins his recitation of the revolution itself.

The revolution starts with a series of small demonstrations in Parliament square but these demonstrations caused the Communist party structure to collapse like a house of cards. The relatively small Soviet troop presence was humbled by the demonstrators. The Soviets deposed Rakosi and announced that Imre Nagy would take over Hungary's leadership. Nagy is a compelling figure. Sebestyen paints a sympathetic yet objective portrait of Nagy. Nagy, a dedicated Communist (albeit not a hardliner) found himself immersed in a situation he could not control. A jovial, if somewhat plodding bureaucrat, Nagy underwent a transformation from a party-liner to the leader of the drive for total independence from the USSR and from the one-party system then in place in Hungary.

Events in Hungary did not take place in a vacuum and Sebestyen's narrative covers the critical roles played by both the USSR and the USA. Sebestyen takes the reader into the Kremlin and paints a picture of a fragmented and confused Politburo that initially was prepared to grant Hungary some `freedoms' but ultimately decided it had to crush to the revolution brutally lest it lose its grip on the rest of Eastern Europe. The USA's role was marked more by inaction than action. The Eisenhower administration, most notably his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, made the `roll back of Communism' a key tenet of the administration and Eisenhower's 1956 re-election campaign. At the same time, the USA-sponsored Radio Free Europe regularly urged its Eastern European listeners to take a stand against Communist rule. Unfortunately, the Hungarian people were cruelly disappointed to find that the USA had absolutely no interest in doing battle with the USSR over Hungary. In fact, Eisenhower made it a point to let the USSR know that it wished to remain neutral and, in effect, let the Kremlin know it had a free hand to do what it wanted.

The Kremlin did send in the tanks in great numbers and crushed the incipient revolution twelve days after it started. Order was restored and the Communist Party took back control of the government. The new party leader, Janos Kadar, was responsible for the prosecution and execution of the revolt's leaders, including Nagy. Life returned to the status quo until the fall of the Soviet Union over thirty years later.

Victor Sebestyen's "Twelve Days" provides a great service in providing a concise history of these twelve days. Twelve Days is a scholarly work (thoroughly researched and annotated) that is written with the lay reader in mind. Twelve Days is a thoughtful, well-written account of twelve tumultuous days in Hungary that left this reader hungry for more accounts of Hungary and its history. Highly recommended. L. Fleisig

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Report this | Permalink

Comment Comment

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History at its absolute finest, 29 Oct 2006

By	Simon K. Johnson (North East England) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a historical subject about which I (like most I suspect) knew very little. However, this book gives probably the most complete and compelling view of one of the most overlooked passages in the history of post war Europe. At a time when the West was fixated with Suez it details the subject without judgement, bias or bitterness. It is clearly a subject the author has researched in painstaking detail and one about which he cares passionately. It is also written in such a way that a complete novice of the subject like me can feel comfortable and informed without the sense of being lectured or patronised. I cannot now wait to visit the city of Budapest myself and get an even greater sense of the tragic events.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Report this | Permalink

Comment Comment

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the best book on the uprising, 2 Sep 2006

By	berlin "333" - See all my reviews

There is a whole subgenre of books on the Uprising - George Mikes, Noel Barber, George Urban, etc. None of them is as complete or readable as this one, with its thumbnail sketches of all the leading characters, the narrative which for once takes in Krushchev's private dramas as well as Imre Nagy's, and its sheer pace. This slow reader took a mere two evenings to finish it. There isn't a dull passage in the book, which is in parts very affecting - not least because the story of the Uprising, and all the smaller more personal stories it contains, is one of the most dramatic and vivid in the last century. Like Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad, it makes you grateful to live in a time when history books are as exciting as the history they describe.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?

Report this | Permalink

Comment Comment

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 8 customer reviews...

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Communism's first Challenge
The Hungarian uprising was the first real challenge to Soviet imperialism after 1945 and as such was a significant moment in European history and an important precursor of the... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Eugene Onegin

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into how the Hungarian revolt was crushed
For many of us the Hungarian uprising was a small point in history. Victor Sebastyen's first book brilliantly brings the events of 1956 alive. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Arthur Pendragon

2.0 out of 5 stars an uncaptivating account of Hungary's failed revolution.
I chose to read this book as I wanted to know more about the failed 1956 Hungarian revolution, as I only had a few snippets of knowledge about the affair which I had learned from... Read more

Published on 18 Dec 2007 by B. Walker

5.0 out of 5 stars A superbly written and gripping account
Victor Sebestyen is an amazing writer. He has created a beautifully crafted text that tells the amazing story how ordinary people rose up against the might of the Soviet Union in... Read more

Published on 19 Jun 2007 by Saul Over

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons from History
For a few days in 1956, it must have felt as if Christmas had come early for the people of Hungary: "Many people in Budapest had never eaten so well as during the Revolution... Read more

Published on 19 Dec 2006 by LS Hicks

› See all 8 customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }