Volume III of The Cambridge History of the Cold War examines the evolution of the conflict from the Helsinki Conference of 1975 until the Soviet collapse in 1991. A team of leading scholars analyzes the economic, social, cultural, religious, technological and geopolitical factors that ended the Cold War and discusses the personalities and policies of key leaders such as Brezhnev, Reagan, Gorbachev, Thatcher, Kohl and Deng Xiaoping. The authors show how events throughout the world shaped the evolution of Soviet-American relations and they explore the legacies of the superpower confrontation in a comparative and transnational perspective. Individual chapters examine how the Cold War affected and was affected by environmental issues, economic trends, patterns of consumption, human rights and non-governmental organizations. The volume represents the new international history at its best, emphasizing broad social, economic, demographic and strategic developments while keeping politics and human agency in focus.

Author Biography

Melvyn P. Leffler is Edward 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, winner of the AHA George Louis Beer Prize) 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 Ireye 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).