This volume examines the origins and early years of the Cold War. In the first comprehensive 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, and discusses how markets, ideas and cultural interactions affected political discourse, diplomacy and strategy after World War II. The chapters focus not only on the United States and the Soviet Union, but also on critical regions such as Europe, the Balkans and East Asia. The authors consider the most influential statesmen of the era and address issues that mattered to people around the globe: food, nutrition and resource allocation; ethnicity, race and religion; science and technology; national autonomy, self-determination and sovereignty. In so doing, they illuminate how people worldwide shaped the evolution of the increasingly bipolar conflict and, in turn, were ensnared by it.

Table of Contents

1. The Cold War and the international history of the twentieth century Odd Arne Westad; 2. Ideology and the origins of the Cold War, 1917-1962 David C. Engerman; 3. The world economy and the Cold War in the middle of the twentieth century Charles S. Maier; 4. The emergence of an American grand strategy, 1945-1952 Melvyn P. Leffler; 5. The Soviet Union and the world, 1944-1953 Vladimir O. Pechatnov; 6. Britain and the Cold War, 1945-1955 Anne Deighton; 7. The division of Germany, 1945-1949 Hans-Peter Schwarz; 8. The Marshall Plan and the creation of the west William I. Hitchcock; 9. The Sovietization of eastern Europe, 1944-1953 Norman Naimark; 10. The Cold War in the Balkans, 1945-1956 Svetozar Rajak; 11. The birth of the People's Republic of China and the road to the Korean War Niu Jun; 12. Japan, the United States, and the Cold War, 1945-1960 Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu; 13. The Korean War William Stueck; 14. US national security policy from Eisenhower to Kennedy Robert J. McMahon; 15. Soviet foreign policy, 1953-1962 Vojtech Mastny; 16. East central Europe, 1953-1956 Csaba Bekes; 17. The Sino-Soviet Alliance and the Cold War in Asia, 1954-1962 Shu Guang Zhang; 18. Nuclear weapons and the escalation of the Cold War, 1945-1962 David Holloway; 19. Culture and the Cold War in Europe Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht; 20. Cold War mobilization and domestic politics: the United States Laura McEnaney; 21. Cold War mobilisation and domestic politics: the Soviet Union David Priestland; 22. Decolonization, the global south, and the Cold War, 1919-1962 Mark Philip Bradley; 23. Oil, resources, and the Cold War, 1945-1962 David S. Painter; Bibliography.

Author Biography

Melvyn P. Leffler is Edward R. Stettinius Professor of American History at the Department of History, University of Virginia. His previous publications include To Lead the World: American Strategy After the Bush Doctrine (2008, as co-editor), For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (2007) and A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War (1992, winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Robert Ferrell Prize and the Herbert Hoover Book Award). Odd Arne Westad is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His previous publications include The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (2005, winner of the Bancroft Prize, the APSA New Political Science Prize, and the Akira Iriye Award), Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 (2003) and Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963 (1999, as editor).