• Cold Warriors

  • Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War
  • By: Duncan White
  • Narrated by: Fred Sanders
  • Length: 24 hrs and 48 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (34 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Cold Warriors  By  cover art

Cold Warriors

By: Duncan White
Narrated by: Fred Sanders
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $46.79

Buy for $46.79

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

A brilliant, invigorating account of the great writers on both sides of the Iron Curtain who played the dangerous games of espionage, dissidence, and subversion that changed the course of the Cold War.

During the Cold War, literature was both sword and noose. Novels, essays and poems could win the hearts and minds of those caught between the competing creeds of capitalism and communism. They could also lead to exile, imprisonment or execution if they offended those in power. The clandestine intelligence services of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union had secret agents and vast propaganda networks devoted to literary warfare. But the battles were personal, too: friends turning on each other, lovers cleaved by political fissures, artists undermined by inadvertent complicities.

In Cold Warriors, Harvard University’s Duncan White vividly chronicles how this ferocious intellectual struggle was waged on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The book has at its heart five major writers - George Orwell, Stephen Spender, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene and Andrei Sinyavsky - but the full cast includes a dazzling array of giants, among them Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, John le Carré, Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Gioconda Belli, Arthur Koestler, Vaclav Havel, Joan Didion, Isaac Babel, Howard Fast, Lillian Hellman, Mikhail Sholokhov - and scores more.

Spanning decades and continents and spectacularly meshing gripping narrative with perceptive literary detective work, Cold Warriors is a welcome reminder that, at a moment when ignorance is celebrated and reading and listening are seen as increasingly irrelevant, writers and books can change the world.

©2019 Duncan White (P)2019 HarperAudio

More from the same

What listeners say about Cold Warriors

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    27
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    25
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An Unexpectedly Interesting and Insightful Read

including a fresh perspective on Philby's phate. Well done ! says this Ame. excellent research.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful