Red Heat
Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean
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Red Heat
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Narrated by:
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Sarah Coomes
About this listen
The Caribbean crises of the Cold War are revealed as never before in this riveting story of clashing ideologies, the rise of the politics of fear, the machinations of superpowers, and the brazen daring of the mavericks who took them on.
During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the Caribbean was in crisis. The men responsible included, from Cuba, the charismatic Fidel Castro and his mysterious brother Ral; from Argentina, the ideologue Che Guevara; from the Dominican Republic, the capricious psychopath Rafael Trujillo; and from Haiti, Franois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, a buttoned-down doctor with interests in Vodou, embezzlement, and torture.
Alex von Tunzelmann's brilliant narrative follows these five rivals and accomplices from the beginning of the Cold War to its end, each with a separate vision for his tropical paradise, and each in search of power and adventure as the United States and the USSR acted out the world's tensions in their island nations. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life. Red Heat is an intimate account of the strong-willed men who, armed with little but words and ruthlessness, took on the most powerful nations on earth.
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Editorial reviews
Alex von Tunzelmann's Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean is a comprehensive look at the tumultuous politics of the region focusing on Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. It starts with the roots of the slave trade and the Monroe Doctrine to chronicle this past century of turmoil and political upheaval on these volatile islands. There's a lot of ground to cover here, especially considering the long and complicated relationship with these countries and their big brother to the North, the United States. Tunzelmann does a thorough job of laying out the events, providing lots of context, and portraying an accurate sense of time and place.
Sarah Coomes imparts a fine energy to the narration. The storylines here are far from the usual dry litany of historic facts and dates. There's a lot of juicy stuff here: CIA plots, brutal murders, Latin playboys, and a cast of bigger-than-life characters that you'd be hard-pressed to match in even the best fictional political thrillers. Coomes seems to always find the right tone whether laying out cold murderous plots, or relaying the horror of a brutal massacre or military action. Her occasional asides on the rumors and tabloid headlines of the time are particularly enjoyable. And Coomes’ British accent becomes material, seeming to give her a bit of third-party impartiality. There's also a fine irony in having a woman narrate this story that is so wrought with testosterone and machismo.
Tunzelmann bookends the work with a look at contemporary times, reminding us that history often repeats itself if we don't learn our lessons. The parallels here to current Middle East politics are uncanny. You see once again the U.S. history of supporting unsavory characters in the name of stability, and our sometimes myopic focus on one overriding issue above all else. In the Caribbean it was the fear of communism that overrode every other consideration, and in the end became a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's hard not to react to Red Heat on a very visceral level. But it is definitely worth revisiting this era and area now and taking a good hard look at these events, especially in how U.S. policy shaped the area, and how it shaped our future. —Cleo Creech
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Looking at the dark side
- By Stanley on 08-02-06
By: Stephen Kinzer
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Mao
- The Unknown Story
- By: Jung Chang, Jon Halliday
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,607
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,300
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,303
Based on a decade of research and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before, and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him, this is the most authoritative biography of Mao ever written.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fills many gaps! Very good..but!
- By Jene on 08-07-06
By: Jung Chang, and others
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Six Months in 1945
- FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War
- By: Michael Dobbs
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 226
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 198
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 197
When Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler's armies were on the run and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace - but instead set the stage for a 44-year division of Europe into Soviet and western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was rapidly fracturing. By the time the leaders met again in Potsdam in July 1945, Russians and Americans were squabbling over the future of Germany and Churchill was warning about an "iron curtain" being drawn down over the Continent.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Totally Outstanding. Bravo !
- By Alan on 10-25-12
By: Michael Dobbs
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Thirteen Days in September
- Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Lawrence Wright
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 325
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 294
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 294
A gripping day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David conference, when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Lessons in Negotiation
- By David on 06-18-15
By: Lawrence Wright
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Operation Snow
- How a Soviet Mole in FDR’s White House Triggered Pearl Harbor
- By: John Koster
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 279
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 256
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Story4 out of 5 stars 254
On December 7, 1941, the nation of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and prompted the United States’ entry into the bloodiest war in human history. Americans have long debated the cause of the bombing; many have argued that the attack was a brilliant Japanese military coup or a failure of US intelligence agencies or even a conspiracy of the Roosevelt administration. But despite the attention historians have paid to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the truth about that fateful day has remained a mystery - until now.
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1 out of 5 stars
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PUT IT IN THE FILE BLAMING FDR FOR PEARL HARBOR
- By Ron on 11-21-20
By: John Koster
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The Fall of Heaven
- The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran
- By: Andrew Scott Cooper
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 200
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 200
In this remarkably human portrait of one of the 20th century's most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He highlights the turbulence of the postwar era, during which the shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent account of a pivotal and sad time
- By Guerin Shea on 09-05-16
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The Assassins' Gate
- America in Iraq
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 208
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
The Assassins' Gate, so dubbed by American soldiers, is the entrance to the American zone in the city of Baghdad. In 2003, the United States blazed into Iraq to depose dictator Saddam Hussein. But after three years and unknown thousands killed, that country faces an escalating civil war and an uncertain fate. How did it get to this point?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly Recommended
- By Drapeau on 02-01-07
By: George Packer
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A Thousand Hills
- Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
Paul Kagame grew up as a wretched refugee. He and a group of comrades, determined to force their way back home after a generation of exile, designed one of the most audacious covert operations in the history of clandestine war. Then, after taking power, they amazed the world by stabilizing and reviving their devastated country.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best Most Comprehensive Work on Rwanda
- By Greg on 07-30-10
By: Stephen Kinzer
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A World of Trouble
- The White House and the Middle East
- By: Patrick Tyler
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
The Middle East is the beginning and the end of U.S. foreign policy: events there influence our alliances, make or break presidencies, govern the price of oil, and draw us into war. But it was not always so - and as Patrick Tyler shows in this thrilling chronicle of American misadventures in the region, the story of American presidents' dealings there is one of mixed motives, skulduggery, deceit, and outright foolishness, as well as of policymaking and diplomacy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Does't deliver
- By Matthew on 02-10-09
By: Patrick Tyler
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A Savage War of Peace
- Algeria 1954-1962
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 29 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 416
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 299
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 295
The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers were driven into exile. From the perspective of half a century, it looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent history of France's Viet Nam
- By David on 04-10-16
By: Alistair Horne
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The General
- Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved
- By: Jonathan Fenby
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth
- Length: 28 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4 out of 5 stars 76
No leader of modern times was more uniquely patriotic than Charles de Gaulle. As founder and first president of the Fifth Republic, General de Gaulle saw himself as "carrying France on [his] shoulders." In his 20s, he fought for France in the trenches and at the epic battle of Verdun. In the 1930s, he waged a lonely battle to enable France to better resist Hitler's Germany. Thereafter, he twice rescued the nation from defeat and decline by extraordinary displays of leadership, political acumen, daring, and bluff, heading off civil war and leaving a heritage adopted by his successors of right and left.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Book Great Read. Narrator Horrible-slow dead voice
- By marigoyle on 10-23-13
By: Jonathan Fenby
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Stalin, Volume I
- Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
- By: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 884
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 748
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 747
Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
By: Stephen Kotkin
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Arik
- The Life of Ariel Sharon
- By: David Landau
- Narrated by: Waler Dixon
- Length: 19 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4 out of 5 stars 42
From the former editor in chief of Haaretz, the first in-depth, comprehensive biography of Ariel Sharon, the most dramatic and imposing Israeli political and military leader of the last forty years. The life of Ariel Sharon spans much of modern Israel’s history. A commander in the Israeli Army from its inception in 1948, Sharon participated in the 1948 War of Independence, played decisive roles in the 1956 Suez War and the Six-Day War of 1967, and is credited here with the shift in the outcome of the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Larger than Life Hero
- By Eugene Choong on 10-07-24
By: David Landau
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A Force So Swift
- Mao, Truman, and the Birth of Modern China, 1949
- By: Kevin Peraino
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
In the opening months of 1949, US President Harry S. Truman found himself faced with a looming diplomatic catastrophe - "perhaps the greatest that this country has ever suffered", as the journalist Walter Lippmann put it. Throughout the spring and summer, Mao Zedong's Communist armies fanned out across mainland China, annihilating the rival troops of America's onetime ally Chiang Kai-shek and taking control of Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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360-Degrees of China, Very Good History Book
- By Jose on 06-19-18
By: Kevin Peraino
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Last Hope Island
- Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War
- By: Lynne Olson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 494
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 449
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 449
A groundbreaking account of how Britain became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle to reclaim their continent from Hitler, from the New York Times best-selling author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not What I Expected--More What I Needed to Know
- By DanD on 06-25-17
By: Lynne Olson
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Midnight's Furies
- The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition
- By: Nisid Hajari
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 247
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 246
Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so bloody - it was supposed to be an answer to the dreams of Muslims and Hindus who had been ruled by the British for centuries. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi's protégé and the political leader of India, believed that Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazingly detailed account of this tragedy i gigan
- By BG on 10-09-15
By: Nisid Hajari
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Prevail
- The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935-1941
- By: Jeff Pearce, Richard Pankhurst - foreword
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
It was the war that changed everything, and yet it's been mostly forgotten: in 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. It dominated newspaper headlines and newsreels. It inspired mass marches in Harlem, a play on Broadway, and independence movements in Africa. As the British Navy sailed into the Mediterranean for a white-knuckle showdown with Italian ships, riots broke out in major cities all over the United States.
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1 out of 5 stars
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This is not a history, it's a package of anecdotes
- By M2 on 02-03-15
By: Jeff Pearce, and others