The 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.

Part travelogue, part history, part fictional adventure, James Michener's heavily researched books edify as they entertain. He began his career with the book that would become the musical South Pacific, but he ended it as one of the century's most popular -- and prolific -- novelists.