Worth Reading

I'm not a history buff by any stretch.  I tend to leave the 700 page David McCullough tomes to those made of sterner stuff than I (ahem, Dad).  But I do like history (as long as it is spoon fed to me), so when I read about One Minute To Midnight,  which was said to be a relatively easily digestible version of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I picked up a copy.

I don't intend to write about every book I read, but with this one I felt compelled.  Aside from the fact that it did turn out to be altogether readable (you almost could see it as the script of a movie), I learned a good deal from the story.  Not only about the crisis itself, which to this point I remembered only as a short paragraph in my ninth grade history book, but about human nature, leadership, negotiation, and the nature of conflict.  I feel strongly that anyone even vaguely introspective would find much food for thought in this narrative.  And be sure not to skip the afterword;  Michael Dobbs' reflections on the crisis will no doubt provoke new ones of your own.