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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 900
EAN: 9780679745495
ISBN: 0679745491
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 576
Publication Date: October 05, 2010
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: October 05, 2010
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
From Neil Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize—winning classic A Bright Shining Lie, comes this long-awaited, magnificent epic. Here is the never-before-told story of the nuclear arms race that changed history–and of the visionary American Air Force officer Bernard Schriever, who led the high-stakes effort. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War is a masterly work about Schriever’s quests to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring nuclear superiority, to penetrate and exploit space for America, and to build the first weapons meant to deter an atomic holocaust rather than to be fired in anger.
Sheehan melds biography and history, politics and science, to create a sweeping narrative that transports the reader back and forth from individual drama to world stage. The narrative takes us from Schriever’s boyhood in Texas as a six-year-old immigrant from Germany in 1917 through his apprenticeship in the open-cockpit biplanes of the Army Air Corps in the 1930s and his participation in battles against the Japanese in the South Pacific during the Second World War. On his return, he finds a new postwar bipolar universe dominated by the antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Inspired by his technological vision, Schriever sets out in 1954 to create the one class of weapons that can enforce peace with the Russians–intercontinental ballistic missiles that are unstoppable and can destroy the Soviet Union in thirty minutes. In the course of his crusade, he encounters allies and enemies among some of the most intriguing figures of the century: John von Neumann, the Hungarian-born mathematician and mathematical physicist, who was second in genius only to Einstein; Colonel Edward Hall, who created the ultimate ICBM in the Minuteman missile, and his brother, Theodore Hall, who spied for the Russians at Los Alamos and hastened their acquisition of the atomic bomb; Curtis LeMay, the bomber general who tried to exile Schriever and who lost his grip on reality, amassing enough nuclear weapons in his Strategic Air Command to destroy the entire Northern Hemisphere; and Hitler’s former rocket maker, Wernher von Braun, who along with a colorful, riding-crop-wielding Army general named John Medaris tried to steal the ICBM program.
The most powerful men on earth are also put into astonishing relief: Joseph Stalin, the cruel, paranoid Soviet dictator who spurred his own scientists to build him the atomic bomb with threats of death; Dwight Eisenhower, who backed the ICBM program just in time to save it from the bureaucrats; Nikita Khrushchev, who brought the world to the edge of nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and John Kennedy, who saved it.
Schriever and his comrades endured the heartbreak of watching missiles explode on the launching pads at Cape Canaveral and savored the triumph of seeing them soar into space. In the end, they accomplished more than achieving a fiery peace in a cold war. Their missiles became the vehicles that opened space for America.
From the Hardcover edition.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I bought this after hearing Sheehan interviewed on NPR.
It sat on my desk for about two months. I've finally gotten to begin reading it and I am having a hard time putting it down.
I'm fascinated by it-I think it's fantastic. If you're any kind of political junkie, if you want more back story about the Truman and Ike years, this book really fleshes things out.
I think this was well worth the price.
Rating: -
I knew I had to read this book when I first saw it. I had previously enjoyed "A Bright Shining Lie" and knew Sheehan is a good storyteller. In telling the story of Bernard Schriever, he's done it again with the "only in America" of an immigrant boy who made good. I am a former USAF missileer,and have spent time in Schriever's legacy organizations doing work on missile and space R&D, so I could relate to much of what is discussed in the book. Contrary to some of the reviewers who complains about ... Read More
Rating: -
This is an excellent history of the role of one American general and the development of the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). This weapons delivery system capable of touching any place on earth had a dramatic impact on the creation of the early Cold War and the interaction of states. The impact on the strategic outlook of many countries political leadership is hard to overstate. This is an excellent read for those interested in these topics. I highly recommend this book.
Rating: -
This is a definitive biography of General Benard Schiever, an immigrant from Germany who rose to the very top in the US Air Force. The book traces the history of the US air defense from the very beginning as the US Army Air Corp through the formation of the US Air Force. General Schriever contributed to the evolution from winged aircraft to the establishment of the US missile supremecy that contributed so much to the winning of the cold war, and laying the foundation for manned space flight.He had ... Read More
Rating: -
In "A Bright Shining Lie" Sheehan mastered the technique of writing the history of a complex subject (in that case, Vietman) through the biography of one man. In "A Fiery Peace," Sheehan attempts to duplicate the feat by telling the tale of the Cold War through the story of the creator of the American ICBM program, USAF General Schriever.
Sheehan's gifts as a writer and the compelling nature of the classified subject of the U.S. missile program that has not been sufficiently addressed before ... Read More
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