Click to go to companion website:
Google
 
World of James A. Michener        -008ab-
James A. Michener Books - Non-fiction:
The Bridge at Andau @ Wikipedia
The Bridge at Andau
1st US edition cover
Author(s)                        James A. Michener
Country                           United States
Language                       English
Genre(s)                         Non-fiction
Publisher                        Random House
Publication date            1957
Media type                      Print
Pages                             270 pp.
ISBN                                0-394-41778-X
The Bridge at Andau is a 1957 nonfiction book by James Michener chronicling the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Michener was living in Austria in the 1950s. He was at the
border of Austria and Hungary during the period in which a significant wave of refugees fled Hungary.

The book is one of Michener’s journalistic works (his 9th or 10th published book) and much shorter than the episodic novels that he wrote over the next thirty years. While
the book is of a historical event based upon interviews with eye-witnesses, the story is told largely through composite characters or characters based on real people whose
names were changed, either for their safety or the safety of family left behind. The story examines the experience of different segments of Hungarian society, both before and
during the uprising, such as students, workers, soldiers, secret police, and ordinary citizens. The book takes the reader to the streets of Budapest, where unarmed young
people, factory workers, and poorly equipped Hungarian soldiers fought Soviet tanks. It also tells the bittersweet story of the few days of freedom enjoyed by the citizens of
Budapest before the Soviets returned in force.

Written soon after the events it chronicles, and published during the ongoing general strike that started soon after the Soviet reoccupation, the book serves to give the reader
an idea of the middle years of the Cold War.
References

  • Michener, James A. (1985 (reissue edition)). The Bridge at Andau. New York: Fawcett. ISBN 0-449-21050-2.