When Hell Froze Over: The Secret War Between the U.S. and Russia at the Top of the World

by E.M. Halliday

Book Overview

An account of one of America's foreign interventions. In 1918, even after the end of World War I, fighting began in Northern Russia. The American Expeditionary Force were fighting the Bolsheviks, but... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743407261
• ISBN13: 9780743407267
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Interesting and reasonably well written

This is an interesting little known war and the book treats it competently. Although a few more maps would have been useful I found those that are there sufficient to follow the action. Perhaps some more info about the other fronts were the revolutionaries were engaged would have been interesting to put things in context.

Good story, slightly weak history

This book was a very enjoyable read. It tells a story that has been, unfortunately, left out of most of our history books. The author tells the story very well. He writes in a very compelling manner.Unfortunately, there are no maps in the book so you are forced to rely on the authors descriptive powers (great, but not the same as a decent map) to set the scene and understand the movements & placement of units. The author also leaves out those unit designations that allow us military history nuts to track which squad belonged to which platoon, etc. (no offense to the other reviewer, I'd just like to see a bit of balance).This story could stand the sort of film treatment that "The Lost Battalion" received from A & E.Now, someone needs to write a book about the other American troops on the other side of the USSR. Also a book about the Czech army fighting it's way across the length of the Soviet Union during, and after, WWI.

An intriguing look at a little known episode in history...

This book highlights the landing at Archangel by an American expeditionary force off the frigid northern Russian coast at the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution. This is frequently left out of the history books. America went in with the aim of fighting the reds only to pull out without achieving her objectives. While I found the subject incredibly interesting, I think the author made it a little difficult to narrate it, at least in the beginning.

Excellent reading for the non-military person

I'm a History major, however I am not a military person. I have found after years of reading military history books that much emphasis is placed on this squad attached to that platoon related to the other battalion, and on a litany of troop movements. This book thankfully downplays that. The troop movements are covered in this book but not to the point of numbing the reader. This is an excellent read and extremely informative and entertaining. U.S. Troops ingaged in pitched battles with regular Russian troops on Russian soil, AMAZING!!! Why isn't this covered in school, why don't we hear more about this. Because we pulled out before completing many of the stated goals. I can not praise this book enough, it is a fantastic book it's 4+ stars. I held off giving it 5 because I like to reserve that for the truly tremendous books. Anyone interested in some of the more obscure aspects of our nations history should read this book. EXCELLENT WORK MR. HALLIDAY!!!!

an understated, compelling history of a lost chapter

never knew of anhy armed combat between US and Russia in the 20th century until this book--fascinating!