When Hell Froze Over

"The only armed combat that has ever occurred between Soviet and American forces...An astounding story." Harrison E. Salisbury, The New York Times
"A narrative of combat superbly told." Chicago Sun-Times
"Vivid...almost unbelievable." Omaha World Herald
"Engrossing...a superb re-creation of the battles." Spokane Chronicle
Blood and Ice
On November 11, 1918, World War I officially ended. But for the men of the ill-starred American Expeditionary Force to North Russia, the fighting had only begun. Plagued by meager supplies, poor leadership, and the lack of a clear-cut objective, this small but valiant American contingent fought impossible odds, scoring several stunning victories against the Bolsheviks before superior numbers and the bone-breaking arctic winter that had defeated Napoleon forced them to withdraw. Now, in the clear, forthright account, E.M. Halliday re-creates one of the most obscure but important of America's foreign interventions: an epic of confusion, endurance, failure-and gallantry-that history almost forgot and the Russians never forgave. Perhaps the Russians have never forgotten these events?
E. M. Halliday was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Columbia University and the University of Michigan (where he got a Ph.D. in literature with a dissertation on the novels of Ernest Hemingway).
During World War II he was an enlisted reporter for Army newspapers and a field correspondent for Yank, the Army magazine. From 1946 to 1962 he taught literature and history at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago and North Carolina State. In 1951-1952 he was a Fulbright scholar in France. From 1963 to 1979 he was a senior editor with the history magazine, American Heritage.
The author of many magazine and journal articles, he has also written the young adult history Russia in Revolution, John Berryman and the Thirties (a memoir of his long friendship with the poet) and has a book on Thomas Jefferson, Understanding Thomas Jefferson, forthcoming from HarperCollins in the fall of 2000. He lives in New York City with a word processor and a cat.