Bridge at Andau
by James A. Michener
List Price:
Our Price: $4.17
You Save: $3.82 (48%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: James A. MichenerEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1985-09-12
ISBN: 0449210502
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Fawcett
Book Reviews of Bridge at Andau
Book Review: A moving story of courageous people
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is about the Hungarian revolution of late 1956. It is based on information the author got from refugees escaping the re-imposition of Communist rule. (The book takes its title from a bridge on the Austrian border which was the end of a favored escape route.)
Much of the book is a fast-paced recounting of how the revolution started and how it was fought. The fighting, against Russian tanks, was mostly done by people using improvised weapons such as bottles filled with gasoline, or even bricks. (They managed to destroy hundreds of tanks with weapons like these and an occasional captured anti-tank gun.) It was a desperate fight, yet the uprising was practically spontaneous.
Why would people fight so desperately? The author does a good job of answering this question by describing what life was like under the Communists. Constant lying propaganda. Never knowing who was a member of the AVO, the hated secret police. Having to teach your children the truth, in secret, and at great risk. Torture and murder carried out by the AVO. These people had no theoretical knowledge of why Communism had to fail; they instead had ample concretes that showed them, every day, why it was so evil.
In fact, it's interesting to note that many of the people who fought so hard against Communist rule were the very people who are supposed to be favored by Communism: workers, students, young intellectuals. The author makes the point also that 85 of 100 tanks burned up by the revolutionaries were destroyed by people under 21: people who were too young to have any experience of a better pre-Communist (and pre-Nazi) existence. Yet they were willing to risk their lives to fight a system they hated.
In short, the Hungarian revolution was a spontaneous uprising of hatred against Communism. Interestingly, even some of the Russian troops stationed in Hungary at the start of the revolution ended up aiding it. This particular scene, one I'll never forget reading, comes to mind:
"...an AVO sharpshooter ... fired a single shot into the crowd.
With fantastic ill luck, this bullet hit a baby in the arms of its mother and knocked both the dead child and the mother onto the pavement. In wild grief she raised the baby high in her arms and rushed toward a Soviet tank. "You have killed my child. Kill me." Her anguished protest was drowned by the sound of AVO guns firing more shots into the crowd.
It is absolutely verified that the tank captain, who had grown to like the Hungarians, raised his cap to the distraught woman and then turned to wipe the tears from his eyes. What he did next made a general battle in Budapest inevitable, for he grimly directed his tank guns against the roof of the Supreme Court building, and with a shattering rain of bullets erased the AVO crew stationed there. Now even the Russians were fighting the AVO men."
What kind of men are in the secret police of a totalitarian regime? Michener answers this by providing a picture of nihilistic losers in the AVO. And yet these men, who contributed nothing but terror, were much better paid than ordinary workers who built things in factories.
I read The Bridge at Andau 40 years ago, but it is so filled with vivid scenes of people fighting for their freedom that I still remember it well. Growing up, this book was the best concretization I had of what a totalitarian regime was like. At times the book is hard to put down. At other times, it's painful to read.
It also, for me, raised other questions. Why did America do nothing to help? And why in the 1960's, confronted with this and many other stories of the brutality of Communism, did so many of the American "New Left" embrace that horrid ideology, or lamely shrug with moral indifference? (There is truly no way the New Left can be forgiven for this, and history will not be kind to them.)
But more than anything, The Bridge at Andau is a story of how so many seemingly ordinary people, when faced with evil and given half a chance to fight it, rose up and did so. In their actions, they are anything but ordinary, and their story should not be forgotten.
Summary of Bridge at Andau
At four o'clock in the morning on a Sunday in November 1956, the city of Budapest was awakened by the shattering sound of Russian tanks tearing the city apart. The Hungarian revolution -- five brief, glorious days of freedom that had yielded a glimpse at a different kind of future -- was over.But there was a bridge at Andau, on the Austrian border, and if a Hungarian could reach that bridge, he was nearly free. It was about the most inconsequential bridge in Europe, but by an accident of history it became, for a few flaming weeks, one of the most important bridges in the world, for across its unsteady planks fled the soul of a nation....
Here is James A. Michener at his most gripping, with a historic account of a people in desperate revolt, a true story as searing and unforgettable as any of his bestselling works of fiction.
Austria Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Austria Books
The Formative Influences, Theories, and Campaigns of the Archduke Carl of Austria: (Contributions in Military Studies)by Lee W. Eysturlid
Praeger; Published: 2000-08-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $76.00
Price in other shops:
Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Making of the 20th Century)by Samuel R. Williamson
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 1991-03; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Hungary at War: Civilians and Soldiers in World War IIby Cecil D. Eby
Pennsylvania State University Press; Published: 1998-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.67
Price in other shops:
Hapsburg Monarchy, 1809-1918: A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungaryby A.J.P. Taylor
H.Hamilton; Published: 1996-01; Hardcover; Book
German-Jewish History in Modern Times, volume 2: Emancipation and Acculturation, 1780-1871Columbia University Press; Published: 1997-04-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $59.00
Price in other shops:
To Try Her Fortune in London: Australian Women, Colonialism, and Modernityby Angela Woollacott
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2001-08-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.95
Price in other shops:
Gustav Mahler, Vol. 3: Vienna: Triumph and Disillusion, 1904-1907by Henry-Louis De La Grange
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2000-05-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $105.82
Price in other shops:
The House of Hapsburg: The Spanish Hapsburgs, The Hapsburgs in Central Europe (Imperial Visions Series: The Rise and Fall of Empires)by Joyce Milton, Caroline Davidson
HBJ Press; Published: 1980; Unbound; Book
Best price: $24.89
Hitler : 1889-1936 Hubrisby Ian Kershaw
Penguin Books Canada, Limited; Published: 1999; Paperback; Book
Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918by A J P Taylor
Penguin Books; Published: 1990-09-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.87
Similar Books and other products
Return to Paradiseby James A. Michener
Fawcett; Published: 1984-09-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.42
Price in other shops:
The Covenantby James A. Michener
Fawcett; Published: 1987-03-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.74
Price in other shops:
The Source: A Novelby James A. Michener
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2002-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Sayonaraby James A. Michener
Fawcett; Published: 1983-09-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.89
Price in other shops:
Polandby James A. Michener
Fawcett; Published: 1984-09-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.42
Price in other shops:
Iberiaby James A. Michener
Fawcett Crest Books by Ballantine Books; Published: 1969-09; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
Tales of the South Pacificby James A. Michener
Fawcett; Published: 1984-09-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.98
Price in other shops:
Journeyby James A. Michener
Fawcett; Published: 1994-10-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.65
Price in other shops:
Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistanby James A. Michener
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2003-09-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
The Bridges at Toko-Riby James A. Michener
Fawcett; Published: 1984-09-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.93
Price in other shops: