"August cannons" - one of the most considerable historical works of the XX century. Her awarded with Пулитцеровской of bonus, survived the great number of reediting and translated into all leading languages of the world, and a president John Kennedy recommended her to the obligatory reading to the surroundings during the Caribbean crisis. He saw in the book of Barbara Такман vivid description of avalanche-type process of crawling together to war in the conditions of sharp international feared a crisis, that in the unsteady world, possessing a nuclear weapon, a similar situation can result in yet more catastrophic consequences..Inexorable logic of events tightens not persons interested gradually, in essence, to militate the states in a bloody whirlpool. But why are all numerous attempts to prevent a beginning catastrophe failed?