Twelve Days

Sebestyen, a journalist whose own family fled from Hungary, gives us a fresh account of this defining moment in the Cold War, incorporating newly released official Hungarian and Soviet documents, his family's diaries, and eyewitness testimony. Tracing the events that led to the rebellion, Sebestyen's narrative moves from the tumultuous streets of Budapest to the Kremlin and the White House, where we hear conversations of those who planned and took part in the uprising and of those who helped crush it--some actively, others through craven inaction. Sebestyen shows how Western rhetoric encouraged the rebels and convinced them they would receive help. For a few thrilling days, as the world watched in amazement, it looked as though the Hungarians would humble the Soviet Union. Then the Soviets showed they would resort to brutal lengths to cling to their Communist empire--and the West let them.--From publisher description.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.