More Resources
Gale World History in Context
Magazine and journal articles, reference works and primary documents on the Cold War
Selected Resources
Longman Compananion to America, Russia and the Cold War, 1941-98 by
This reference guide throws light on almost every aspect of postwar international history from the rise of Mao's China to the Bosnian Civil War. It provides a huge wealth of information on East-West relations setting events, crises and conflicts in their full international context.
Call Number: D840 .Y68 1999ISBN: 0582369010Publication Date: 1999-01-04
Cold War by
More than a bipolar conflict between two Superpowers, the decades-long Cold War had implications for the entire world. In this accessible, comprehensive retelling, Carole K. Fink provides new insights and perspectives on key events with an emphasis on people, power, and ideas, along with cultural coverage "from the Beetle to the Beatles." Cold War goes beyond US-USSR relations to explore the Cold War from an international perspective, including key events and developments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Fink also offers a broader time line of the Cold War than any other text, charting the lead-up to the conflict with the Russian Revolution and World War II and discussing the aftermath of the Cold War since 1992. Based on the latest research and scholarship, Cold War is the consummate book on this lengthy and complex conflict for today's students and history buffs.
Call Number: D843.F456 2014ISBN: 9780813347950Publication Date: 2013-12-24
The Cold War by
For half of the twentieth century, the Cold War gripped the world. International relations everywhere--and domestic policy in scores of nations--pivoted around this central point, the American-Soviet rivalry. Even today, much of the world's diplomacy grapples with chaos created by the ColdWar's sudden disappearance. Here indeed is a subject that defies easy understanding. Now comes a definitive account, a startlingly fresh, clear eyed, comprehensive history of our century's longest struggle. In The Cold War, Ronald E. Powaski offers a new perspective on the great rivalry, even as he provides a coherent, concise narrative. He wastes no time in challenging the reader to think of the Cold War in new ways, arguing that the roots of the conflict are centuries old, going back toCzarist Russia and to the very infancy of the American nation. He shows that both Russia and America were expansionist nations with messianic complexes, and the people of both nations believed they possessed a unique mission in history. Except for a brief interval in 1917, Americans perceived theRussian government (whether Czarist or Bolshevik) as despotic; Russians saw the United States as conspiring to prevent it from reaching its place in the sun. U.S. military intervention in Russia's civil war, with the aim of overthrowing Lenin's upstart regime, entrenched Moscow's fears. SovietAmerican relations, difficult before World War II--when both nations were relatively weak militarily and isolated from world affairs--escalated dramatically after both nations emerged as the world's major military powers. Powaski paints a portrait of the spiraling tensions with stark clarity, aseach new development added to the rivalry: the Marshall Plan, the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the Berlin blockade, the formation of NATO, the first Soviet nuclear test. In this atmosphere, Truman found it easy to believe that the Communist victory in China and the Korean War were products ofSoviet expansionism. He and his successors extended their own web of mutual defense treaties, covert actions, and military interventions across the globe--from the Caribbean to the Middle East and, finally to Southeast Asia, where containment famously foundered in the bog of Vietnam. Powaski skillfully highlights the domestic politics, diplomatic maneuvers, and even psychological factors as he untangles the knot that bound the two superpowers together in conflict. From the nuclear arms race, to the impact of U.S. recognition of China on detente, to Brezhnev's inflexiblepersistence in competing with America everywhere, he casts new light on familiar topics. Always judicious in his assessments, Powaski gives due credit to Reagan and especially Bush in facilitating the Soviet collapse, but also notes that internal economic failure, not outside pressure, proveddecisive in the Communist failure. Perhaps most important, he offers a clear eyed assessment of the lasting distortions the struggle wrought upon American institutions, raising questions about whether anyone really won the Cold War. With clarity, fairness, and insight, he offers the definitiveaccount of our century's longest international rivalry.
Call Number: E183.8.S65 P69 1998ISBN: 0195078500Publication Date: 1997-09-25
The Columbia Guide to the Cold War by
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.
Call Number: E744 .K696 1998ISBN: 0231107722Publication Date: 1998-11-25
Kennedy and the Berlin Wall by
Kennedy and the Berlin Wall tells the full story of the Berlin Crisis that riveted international attention and brought the world to the brink of nuclear warfare as Soviet and American tanks opposed each other on the streets of Berlin. Drawing on the author's own experience as an American diplomat in Germany during the period, as well as on recently opened Soviet, East German, and American archives, Smyser tells the story of how the fate of a city affected national politics as well as geopolitics. This compelling mix of documentary resources and direct experience of diplomatic negotiations makes the book unique. The author has a keen sense of the critical moment and draws incisive portraits of the politicians and diplomats involved in this drama--most importantly, the two main actors, Kennedy and Khrushchev, but also DeGaulle for the French, Macmillan for the British, and Konrad Adenauer for the West Germans, as well as such critical career diplomats as Dean Rusk and Andrei Gromyko.
Call Number: E841.S57 2009ISBN: 9780742560901Publication Date: 2009-08-16
