The summer before the Berlin Wall collapses, a young American art histo- rian whose husband has disappeared returns to the divided city seeking truths she believes he might have kept from her. There, she falls again under the spell of an exiled East German artist whose stories of Greek mystics once made him as irresistible as he was forbidding. In this novel of conflicting allegiances played out between a richly realized late Cold War Berlin and the stark beauty of the Cycladic islands, travellers, natives, and refugees circle one another warily, their fates hanging on the question of which trusts if any, will remain unviolated.

For nearly fifty years after the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an ideological standoff that at times seemed to threaten the very future of the planet. This volume not only looks at the political and military strategies used by both sides during this lengthy confrontation but also at the after-effects that these strategies had on the culture of the world as a whole.

Weird Tales #297 showcases Nancy Springer as the Featured Author and Frank Kelly Freas (who did all the artwork) as the Featured Artist. Other contributors include Thomas Ligotti and John Brunner.

The personal recollections of a participant in the Cold War During the peak of the Cold War in Europe, a young Bulgarian graphic artist meets a British diplomatic secretary in Sofia, Bulgaria. From this accidental meeting develops a romantic relationship that draws the attention of the secret service on both sides: the British MI6 and the Bulgarian counter-intelligence under the direction of the KGB. It occurred in the period between spring 1955 and summer 1959.

Poetry and astronomy often travel together in the political sphere, from Milton's meeting with Galileo under house arrest to NASA's practice of launching poems into space. Anchored in the post-war period but drawing on a long history of poetry and science, Lyric Poetry and Space Exploration from Einstein to the Present charts the surprising connection between poetry and extra-terrestrial space. In an era defined by the vast scales of globalization, environmental disaster, and space travel, poets bring the small scales of lyric intimacy to bear on cosmic immensity. While outer space might seem the domain of more popular genres, lyric poetry has ancient and enduring associations with cosmic inquiry that have made it central to post-war space culture. As the Cold War played out in space, American institutions and media - from NASA to Star Trek - enlisted poetry to present space exploration as a peaceful mission on behalf of humankind. Meanwhile, poets from across the globe have turned to the cosmos to contest American imperialism, challenging conventional ideas about lyric poetry in the process. Poets including Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Agha Shahid Ali, and Tracy K. Smith invoke the extra-terrestrial to interrogate national histories alongside their craft. Dazzled by the aesthetics of astronomy but wary of its imperial uses, poets employ astronomical figures and methods to imagine how we might care for both ourselves and others on a shared planet.

The acclaimed, dramatic story of the first three months of the Korean War, when outnumbered and outgunned Marines and GIs executed two of the greatest military operations in history and saved South Korea—and the Marine Corps—from extinction. The Darkest Summer is the dramatic story of the first three months of the Korean War as it has never been told before. A narrative studded with gripping eyewitness accounts, it focuses on the fateful days when the Korean War’s most decisive battles were fought and the Americans who fought them went—however briefly—from the depths of despair to the exultation of total conquest. Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of surviving U.S. veterans, it reveals how one ninety-day period changed the course of modern history and opens a unique and revealing window on an all-but-forgotten war.