Using extensive materials from both published and private sources, this text focuses on US/Soviet diplomacy to explain the causes and consequences of the Cold War. It identifies major policy-makers and explores major crises in the post-1945 period. The author also looks at how the Cold War was shaped by domestic events in both the USA and Soviet Union. Material new to this edition includes: a rewritten post-1989 final chapter; the rewriting of the events in the 1950s, the Lyndon Johnson presidency and the Reagan presidential years; and a stronger focus on Soviet/Russian developments.
Introduction - the burden of history (to 1941); open doors, iron curtains (1941-1945); only two declarations of Cold War (1946); two halves of the same walnut (1947-48); the different world of NSC-68 (1948-50); Korea - the war for both Asia and Europe (1950-51); new issues, new faces (1951-53); a different Cold War (1953-55); east and west of Suez (1954-57); new frontiers and old dilemmas (1957-62); Southeast Asia and elsewhere (1962-1966); a new containment - the rise and fall of Detente (1966-76); from Cold War to old war - Reagan and Gorbachev (1977-1989); a new world order? (1989-).