The Bridge at Andau: A Historical Account of the Hungarian Revolution

Hayseed: Rereading this after a gap of 60+ years. Michener has been proven to be so accurate in his insights of the lessons the Hungarian people learned through their bitter lesson.

United States on Aug 09, 2023

Karen Monsen: In the 1950s, Michener volunteered to help refugees cross the Bridge at Andau into Austria escaping communism and the Soviet regime, which was putting down a temporarily successful revolt in Budapest, Hungary. Horrified by what he saw and heard, he investigated in depth what brought about the revolt and its aftermath. This is a profound indictment of communism. Even though written in the 1950s, and being dated, it reverberates in the news from Ukraine and Putin‘s Soviet-era desire to rob the freedom from his neighbors. An excellent book. I learned vasts amounts about Hungary and its history. I‘m so glad I found and read this book. But skip the audio. It is monotonous to the point of robotic.

United States on Jul 18, 2023

Jan Moniz: Did not realize how many varied books he wrote in his life and what a treasure he was on so many differant topics. This book was very interesting to me and my husband who is half Hungarian - we remember hearing about the invasion in Hungary as children but never knew the whole story. We are reminded now that we are in Ukraine and what is happening there. We have visited Budapest a few times and this book really gave us more of a complete vision as to what the people went through at the time and another history lesson on the horrors of communism to humans.

United States on Apr 29, 2023

Sir Thomas: Michener has written a superb human interest history of Hungary's attempts to gain freedom from Soviet control in 1956 and its subsequent crushing. He interviewed around 100 refugees who fled to Austria where Michener was then living. Their stories and the accuracy of historical facts make this a compelling read.

Australia on Feb 18, 2023

robert goodrick: This book is enormously relevant to our society in the West today, where human rights won for us by our courageous forebears and by now so long taken for granted are under dire threat from the creeping menace of socialism that is rising in our midst. As sure as human nature is the template that overlays our unwitting behaviour the lessons of history once forgotten are bound to be relived unless the abysmal pitfalls as those chronicled by The Bridge at Andau are deliberately avoided. Unless we take deliberate action to stave off an otherwise inevitable outcome, life on the streets of NYC will soon be indistinguishable from the misery of that in downtown Havana.

Canada on Feb 14, 2022

ann coleman: Having loved everything James Michener has written, particularly The Source and Hawaii , this book show Michener the journalist in reporting mode. Good coverage of the revolution but it comes from the American suspicious hatred of all things communist. Never less than brilliant.

United Kingdom on Jul 18, 2021

JEK: Written in 1957 -- it seems a bit preachy and an anti-communist diatribe at times. However, it is a very interesting insight into the mindsets of the patriots as well as the oppressive government. I have no reason to disbelieve the eye-witness accounts which later became the pattern in the GDR, Poland and other communist dominated countries. I had a friend who escaped from Hungary at that time. It rings true to his stories which we sometimes though were a bit embellished. The sentiments seem dated, however we see the patterns in Iraq Libya and other autocratic regimes where a secret service becomes as powerful as a government.

Canada on May 07, 2018

michael busch: There appears to be too few accounts describing this tragic event which was one of the earliest steps towards the fall of the Soviet Union. Even during a visit to Budapest in 2003 I found very little to remind people today of the courage and sacrifice that took place. The book sparked a continued interest in Hungary after the uprising and in the years immediately following. Any recommendations?

Canada on Jun 24, 2017

Andrei Filotti: The book, written in 1957, is based on an important number of discussions with refugees who were fleeing Hungary, after the anti-communist revolution against communism was crushed by the Soviet tanks. The presentation of the events of the revolution is vivid and realistic, as long as it does is limited to facts and does not attempt to explain what happened in Hungary in 1956. Because besides the presentation of the events, the book about the Bridge at Andau sadly demonstrates the inability of a writer to understand what was really going on, even though he was living in the part of the world where the events took place. Therefore the image of Hungary in 1956 is extremely misleading.

The book presents the revolution as mainly directed against the Soviet occupation. In reality it was a rising against the communist regime, which had been installed in Hungary, as a consequence of the division of Europe, agreed upon in the Yalta accords. The presentation of the Hungarian secret police, the AVO, as supporting the Russian occupation is false. The truth is that the secret police, as a repression organism of any dictatorial regime, was created by the Hungarian communist party and was...

United States on Dec 28, 2013

Anthony Trendl: Thousands of Hungarians were killed by Soviet forces in November 1956. Their crime? Taking back their country from foreign leaders. At that time, 200,000 more fled Hungary in the months following, knowing that the oppressive, murderous communist leaders were not going to show mercy to those who were involved.

James Michener's "Bridge at Andau" tells the story of those fleeing. He was there to see it, and told what he saw. Michener's storytelling style is a kind of John Grisham mix of detail and personality. He took real lives of people struggling to survive and presented them to the horrified world. Michener researched his story in Austria and at the bridge itself.

Michener published the book in 1957, while the crush of the Hungarian people continued. America refused to assist the pleas of the Hungarian revolutionaries, based on a combination of American opinion, and a real concern that WWIII might break out in the midst of the Cold War. Instead, we focused on the Suez Canal. Unfortunately, the Hungarian people suffered.

Andau is an Austrian city at the Hungarian border. It was called Mosontarcsa, as part of Hungary, until 1921. It was a small village, but a...

United States on Dec 18, 2006