Blight and Lang (Balsillie Sch. of International Affairs; coauthors, Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived) present a controversial investigation of the Cuban Missile Crisis, taking an approach they call “critical history,” in which discussions with players and rigorous analysis of primary documents are used to construct first-person narratives showing how Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro led their nations and interacted with each other (Kennedy with Khrushchev and Khrushchev with Castro). The authors claim that this is not fiction since facts are presented as they are known and no people, events, or scenarios are invented. The book is centered on 43 “Armageddon letters,” declassified between 1990 and 2005, which reveal that both Kennedy and Khrushchev tried to avoid a nuclear showdown, while Castro was willing to sacrifice Cuba if the Soviet Union would bomb the United States in retaliation. The book is divided into four acts, each one starting with a “Theatrical Preview” overview, and each also accompanied by a stark graphic story summarizing the text, with panels drawn by Andrew Whyte and dialog written by Koji Mautani. A helpful website, armageddonletters.com, amplifies the text. VERDICTThe book engages the reader and offers insight into leadership during the crisis.

Library Journal

The goal of The Armageddon Letters is to have the reader experience the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis vicariously. Blight and Lang (both, Univ. of Waterloo, Canada) provide a list of six points that they argue will help the reader get into the minds of Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro. These points are that Armageddon is possible, is possible even if leaders are rational, can become highly probable in a crisis, will likely occur inadvertently, and remains virtually inevitable; as a result, nuclear weapons should be abolished. The book is centered on 43 letters and other communications among the three leaders that the authors use to describe events that occurred during those tense thirteen days in 1962. The book is organized like a play with chapters denoting the cast of characters, a prelude, acts 1 through 4, and a postscript. The chapters also provide comic strip illustrations presenting scenes of the key actors. The act chapters consist of the actual letters of the leaders during the crisis with the authors providing context that elaborates on events. The book includes a wealth of companion material including a website http://www.armageddonletters.com that offers additional information in video and audio formats. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels.

Choice Reviews

The Armageddon Lettersinnovatively and emotively. . . attempts to reverse the presumed apathy of young people toward nuclear holocaust. . . . [Blight and Lang] succeed as pioneers; their transmedia presentation is a great means of waking up a new generation to history and its lessons. ... Blight draws creative connections that grab our attention. ... the authors achieve their heartfelt intention of saturating us with warnings about a nuclear disaster. This multimedia and transmedia project largely works. . . . We are fortunate that we are sitting here now to read about Armageddon, rather than having experienced it—and that second chance is what Blight and Lang have so cleverly marketed to us.

Journal of American History

In October 1962, the world was literally on the eve of its end—Armageddon. Yet, you are reading this book. Armageddon did not happen. Statesmanship, strategy, and serendipity gave you this opportunity to learn from this dramatic crisis, which is admirably and lucidly re-told and portrayed in this book. You are thus afforded the chance to make sure our successors will be alive to read it and learn from it in decades to come.

Jorge I. Dominguez, director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University

Tasty morsels from secret communicationsamong Kennedy, Khrushchev,and Castro during the most dangerous confrontation in recorded history.

Graham Allison, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government

The Armageddon Letters is a tour de force that brings the Cuban missile crisis harrowingly alive, and makes it relevant for our current time. Based on nearly 30 years of path breaking scholarship, it situates 43 well-chosen documents in both their historical and human context, and enables the reader to probe between the lines. Blight and Lang also make clear that the genesis of the confrontation began long before October 1962, that the potentially catastrophic circumstances lasted for three agonizing weeks beyond the famous 13 days, and that Cuba’s threat calculus and behavior had an effect on the both the crisis and its aftermath. They thus laudably return Cuba to the Cuban missile crisis story.
The Armageddon Letters will deeply engage both students and general readers, because it uniquely focuses on the emotions of Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro as they faced what each perceived to be no way out of an impending Armageddon. It will leave readers with the appropriate lessons they should derive from the missile crisis: we survived by luck, not skill; a similar crisis could well occur again; we must rely on empathy, not a false rationality, if we hope to avoid a future Armageddon.

Philip Brenner, American University