{{Short description|American historical non-fiction book}} {{italic title}} {{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books --> | name = K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude, Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist | image = K Blows Top.jpg |caption = | author = Peter Carlson | country = United States | language = English | genre = History | publisher = PublicAffairs | release_date = 2009 | media_type = Print (hardcover and paperback) | pages = | isbn = 978-1-58648-497-2 | dewey = | congress = | oclc = }} '''''K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude, Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America's Most Unlikely Tourist''''' (2009) is a book by Peter Carlson published by PublicAffairs describing the 1959 state visit by Nikita Khrushchev to the United States.
== Synopsis == The book covers Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States, which took him to New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Iowa, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., and included visits to 20th Century Fox, the Mark Hopkins Hotel, an Iowa farm, a Pittsburgh steel mill, and Camp David. Highlights included meeting Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra on the set of ''Can-Can'', visiting a Quality Foods supermarket in San Francisco, and meeting Harry Bridges, fiery labor leader, movie star Marilyn Monroe, and hostess Perle Mesta, among many other Americans, famous and not-so-famous.
The title comes from a New York Daily News headline about Khrushchev's reaction when he was refused admission to Disneyland.<ref name="Carlson After Words">{{cite web |title=After Words with Peter Carlson |url=https://www.c-span.org/program/after-words/peter-carlson/209630 |publisher=C-SPAN |access-date=April 11, 2026 |date=July 22, 2009}}</ref>
==Film adaptation== In 2013, the story was in pre-production as a made-for-television movie to be produced by Tom Hanks and starring Paul Giamatti.<ref>{{cite web|title=K Blows Top|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1699749/|work=IMDB|publisher=IMDb.com, Inc.|accessdate=22 May 2013}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586484972&cover=hc ''K Blows Top'' at PublicAffairs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716081958/http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586484972&cover=hc |date=2011-07-16 }} * [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/08/AR2009060803751.html Review in ''The Washington Post'' (June 8, 2009)] * [https://www.c-span.org/program/after-words/peter-carlson/209630 Carlson interviewed by Sergei Khrushchev about ''K Blows Top'' on C-SPAN's ''After Words'', August 31, 2009]
Category:2009 non-fiction books Category:Books about the Cold War Category:Nikita Khrushchev Category:PublicAffairs books