Red Heat in the Cold War: how US policy in the Caribbean nearly caused the end of the world
Wednesday 15 June
Lecture Theatre 8W 1.1
Though the Cuban Missile Crisis has gone down in history as just thirteen days, it was really just one battle in a much longer and largely secret war fought by the US against communism in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. But was the threat of communism real, or had the United States created its own monster? This revisionist look at the Cold War draws telling parallels between the war on communism in the fifties and sixties and the war on terror today.
For more lectures, see the full Summer 2011 GULP programme.
Ms Alex von Tunzelmann
Alex von Tunzelmann's first book, Indian Summer, was published in 2007. It is in development as a feature film by Working Title Productions. Her second book, Red Heat, was published in April 2011. It is a history of the Cold War in the Caribbean, focussed around the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Castros and the Kennedys. Alex also writes Reel History, a weekly column for The Guardian Online about the truth behind historical movies.