The Global Cold War
by Odd Arne Westad
Buy on AmazonThe Cold War shaped the world we live in today - its politics, economics, and military affairs. This book shows how the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created the foundations for most of the key conflicts we see today, including the War on Terror. It focuses on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - gave rise to resentments and resistance that in the end helped topple one superpower and still seriously challenge the other. Ranging from China to Indonesia, Iran, Ethiopia, Angola, Cuba, and Nicaragua, it provides a truly global perspective on the Cold War.…
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"This book was written by a Norwegian scholar, now a professor at the London School of Economics. He is a phenomenal researcher who is capable of working in a dozen languages – not just european ones, but also Chinese and some indigenous African languages, which he picked up in younger years when he was as a development worker. This book was a success amongst professional historians but is less well-known in the popular sphere. It seeks to understand the global Cold War by looking at times when the United States and the Soviet Union intervened in other countries. It comes to the conclusion that interventions benefited no one. They didn’t benefit the United States or the Soviet Union and they certainly didn’t benefit the developing countries that were invaded or intervened upon in some way. And, because he has worked with so many sources from all over the world, it is a very powerful argument. If you have readers who are interested in a good work of serious history on the cold war then I would definitely recommend this book."
1989 · fivebooks.com