Crucible Book Reviews

Crucible by Jonathan Fenby Book Summary

One year shaped the world we know today. This is the page-turning story of the pivotal changes which were forged in the space of thirteen months of 1947-48 

Two years after the end of the second conflict to engulf the world in twenty years, and the defeat of the Axis forces of Germany, Italy and Japan, this momentous time saw the unrolling of the Cold War between Joseph Stalin's Soviet Russia and the Western powers under the untried leadership of Harry Truman as America came to play a global role for the first time.

The British Empire began its demise with the birth of the Indian and Pakistan republics with the flight of millions and wholesale slaughter as Vietnam, Indonesia and other colonies around the globe vied for freedom. 1948 also marked the creation of the state of Israel, the refugee flight of Palestinians and the first Arab-Israeli war as well as the victories of Communist armies that led to their final triumph in China, the coming of apartheid to South Africa, the division of Korea, major technological change and the rolling out of the welfare state against a backdrop of events that ensured the global order would never be the same again.
 
This dynamic narrative spans the planet with overlapping epic episodes featuring such historic figures as Truman and Marshall, Stalin and Molotov, Attlee and Bevin, De Gaulle and Adenauer, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, Nehru and Jinnah, Ben Gurion and the Arab leaders. Between them, they forged the path to our modern world.

Praise for Jonathan Fenby:-

'Brave and ambitious.' Times Literary Supplement 
'Fenby writes with the authority of experience. There is much to enjoy in his fluently written history and much to learn from it too.'Literary Review
'[Fenby] is at his best when he teases out the tensions between the republican unifying ideal and the enduring divisions that periodically emerge.’The Economist
‘Fenby positively gallops through a comprehensive account of France from 1789 until now. He has not selected only the juicy bits… He fills in what happens in between so that the narrative is complete. ' Independent

 

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