The Cold War

A World History

As Germany and then Japan surrendered in 1945 there was a tremendous hope that a new and much better world could be created from the moral and physical ruins of the conflict. Instead, the combination of the huge power of the USA and USSR and the near-total collapse of most of their rivals created a unique, grim new environment: the Cold War.

For over forty years the demands of the Cold War shaped the life of almost all of us. Europe was seemingly split in two indefinitely. This is a book of extraordinary scope and daring. It is conventional to see the first half of the 20th century as a nightmare and the second half as a reprieve. Westad shows that for much of the world the second half was by most measures even worse.
Westad has demonstrated that it is possible to tell the vast story of the Cold War in just 600 pages...a clear and well-written summary of a global conflict
Gerard Degroot, The Times

About Odd Arne Westad

Odd Arne Westad is S.T. Lee Professor of U.S-Asia Relations at Harvard University, where he teaches at the Kennedy School of Government. He has published over fifteen books on modern and contemporary international history, among them The Global Cold War, which won the Bancroft Prize, and Restless Empire. He is the co-author of The Penguin History of the World.
Details
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • ISBN: 9780141979915
  • Length: 720 pages
  • Dimensions: 198mm x 30mm x 130mm
  • Weight: 492g
  • Price: £16.99
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