The Cold War: A World History - Couverture souple

Westad, Odd Arne

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0141979917 ISBN 13 : 9780141979915

Editeur : Penguin, 2018

Synopsis

'Masterly ... a book of resounding importance for appraising our global future as well as understanding our past' Richard Davenport-Hines, The Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year

'A masterful survey that will set the standard for Cold War scholarship for years to come' Jonathan Steele, London Review of Books

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. There was no part of the world where East and West did not, ultimately, demand a blind and absolute allegiance, and nowhere into which the West and East did not reach. Countries as remote from each other as Korea, Angola and Cuba were defined by their allegiances. Almost all civil wars became proxy conflicts for the superpowers. Europe was seemingly split in two indefinitely.

Arne Westad's remarkable new book is the first to have the distance from these events and the ambition to create a convincing, powerful narrative of the Cold War. The book is genuinely global in its reach and captures the dramas and agonies of a period always overshadowed by the horror of nuclear war and which, for millions of people, was not 'cold' at all: a time of relentless violence, squandered opportunities and moral failure.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

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.

À propos de la quatrième de couverture

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. There was no part of the world where East and West did not, ultimately, demand a blind and absolute allegiance, and nowhere into which the West and East did not reach. Countries as remote from each other as Korea, Angola and Cuba were defined by their allegiances. Almost all civil wars became proxy conflicts for the superpowers. Europe was seemingly split in two indefinitely.

Arne Westad's remarkable new book is the first to have the distance from these events and the ambition to create a convincing, powerful narrative of the Cold War. The book is genuinely global in its reach and captures the dramas and agonies of a period always overshadowed by the horror of nuclear war and which, for millions of people, was not 'cold' at all: a time of relentless violence, squandered opportunities and moral failure.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Penguin
• Date d'édition: 2018
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0141979917
• ISBN 13: 9780141979915
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 720
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Penguin; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/; ; CL MODESTO LAFUENTE 41; Madrid; Madrid; Espagne