The new issue of Aspects of History magazine includes a cracking review of The Stay Behinds, written by Paul Burke, who interviewed me a few weeks ago and is also the chief book critic at Spybrary. He observes, quite rightly:
The American-Anglocentric view of the Cold War as ‘our’ confrontation with the Soviet Union undervalues the very real and much closer antagonism and threat the Nordic nations faced from Russia.
Against this background, Burke positions my book as a contribution that—in “simple elegant prose”—widens our understanding of the Cold War.
If you are someone who thinks the Cold War is about Britain and America and Russia this [The Stay Behinds] might open your eyes to how ‘live’ the threat, the possibility of war, was for those nations on the front line.
A very interesting perspective, one that I hadn’t thought of myself. But that only goes to show how books are often smarter than their authors.