Small Wars, Faraway Places

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JUL 1, 2013

Following the end of WWII, colonial empires collapsed, the Soviet Union and the U.S. dug in for the Cold War, and "hot" conflicts erupted across the globe. In this intriguing history, Burleigh (The Third Reich) surveys these forgotten wars and the people that fought them, ranging in his tale from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean. He strikes a good balance between profiling those at the top, such as Winston Churchill (whose decision to remain prime minister in 1953 after suffering a major stroke Burleigh characterizes as "the final, desperate act of a wholly self-centered life"), and those on the ground, like Irene Lee, a Chinese detective who helped destroy the Malayan communist intelligence network after communists killed her husband. Burleigh is hard-hitting in his take on the consequences of the vacuum left behind in the wake of departing colonial powers, especially in his depiction of the Viet Minh's decisive victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu and Britain's botched handling of the Suez Crisis. Slyly humorous and wonderfully detailed, Burleigh's vivid narrative does justice to the lesser-known struggles of a complex era.