The only comprehensive and up-to-date book of its kind with the latest information.

There are many reference works on the cold war, including The Cold War Encyclopedia (1996) and the recent Historical Dictionary of the Cold War (2000). These works put a crucial period of the twentieth century into perspective. They share an international focus, driven in part by the global nature of the cold war, the events that defined it, and the people who fought it. This new encyclopedia takes a different tack, focusing almost exclusively on American domestic events and issues and touching on international themes only when they are relevant to the U.S. scene.More than 700 entries are arranged alphabetically, beginning with Acheson, Dean, secretary of state from 1949 to 1953, and ending with Yippies, an anti-establishment DEGREESB radical element of the hippie movement. In between are entries on presidents and their opponents, civil rights groups and leaders, phrases, and definitions. The length of each entry (ranging from 100-2,500 words) reflects the importance of the subject or the depth of coverage needed. Acheson's boss, Harry Truman, earns just over four columns, while Truman's opponent in the infamous 1948 general election, Thomas Dewey, barely rates one column.Each entry is factual and concise. The entry on Martin Luther King Jr. mentions his early life and education, his adherence to Gandhi's policy of nonviolence, the March on Washington, and his assassination in Tennessee, avoiding the various controversies surrounding both King's life and death. Sometimes the generally objective tone of the work is missing, as when, for example, it defines com munism as paradoxical and self-defeating. Black-and-white photographs enhance the text, and the index is detailed.This volume is a worthy addition to the cold war reference shelf. Its coverage of people, places, and events that might be ignored in works with a more international perspective makes it a good starting point for anyone interested in an American focus. Recommended for high-school, public, and academic libraries. RBB. Copyright (r) American Library Association. All rights r

The definitive history of the Cold War and its impact around the world We tend to think of the Cold War as a bounded conflict: a clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, born out of the ashes of World War II and coming to a dramatic end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Bancroft Prize-winning scholar Odd Arne Westad argues that the Cold War must be understood as a global ideological confrontation, with early roots in the Industrial Revolution and ongoing repercussions around the world. In The Cold War, Westad offers a new perspective on a century when great power rivalry and ideological battle transformed every corner of our globe. From Soweto to Hollywood, Hanoi, and Hamburg, young men and women felt they were fighting for the future of the world. The Cold War may have begun on the perimeters of Europe, but it had its deepest reverberations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where nearly every community had to choose sides. And these choices continue to define economies and regimes across the world. Today, many regions are plagued with environmental threats, social divides, and ethnic conflicts that stem from this era. Its ideologies influence China, Russia, and the United States; Iraq and Afghanistan have been destroyed by the faith in purely military solutions that emerged from the Cold War. Stunning in its breadth and revelatory in its perspective, this book expands our understanding of the Cold War both geographically and chronologically and offers an engaging new history of how today's world was created.

Includes about seven-hundred short entries for people, events, planes, missiles, programs, concepts, and countries involved in any manner with the Cold War

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

Featuring 170 striking photographs, Abandoned Cold War Places is a fascinating visual history of the relics left behind by both sides from the late 1940s to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Cold War was the longest conflict in American history, and the defining event of the second half of the twentieth century. Since its recent and abrupt cessation, we have only begun to measure the effects of the Cold War on American, Soviet, post-Soviet, and international military strategy, economics, domestic policy, and popular culture. The Columbia Guide to the Cold War is the first in a series of guides to American history and culture that will offer a wealth of interpretive information in different formats to students, scholars, and general readers alike. This reference contains narrative essays on key events and issues, and also features an A-to-Z encyclopedia, a concise chronology, and an annotated resource section listing books, articles, films, novels, web sites, and CD-ROMs on Cold War themes.

The Cold War dominated international relations for forty-five years. It shaped the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union and deeply affected their societies, domestic situations and their government institutions. Hardly any part of the world escaped its influence. David Painter provides a compact and analytical study that examines the origins, course, and end of the Cold War. His overview is global in perspective, with an emphasis on the Third World as well as the contested regions of Asia and Central America, and a strong consideration of economic issues. He includes discussion of: the global distribution of power the arms race the world economy. The Cold War gives a concise, original and interdisciplinary introduction to this international state of affairs, covering the years between 1945 and 1990.

This volume examines the origins and early years of the Cold War in the first comprehensive historical reexamination of the period. A team of leading scholars shows how the conflict evolved from the geopolitical, ideological, economic and sociopolitical environments of the two world wars and interwar period.