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Martin WalkerMartin Walker
The Cold War: A History Hardcover – January 1, 1994
by Martin Walker (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 55 ratings
3.8 on Goodreads
310 ratings
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Goes beyond the headlines of the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, Korea, and Vietnam to take an in-depth look at the situation of the United States--before, during, and after the Cold War. 12,500 first printing.
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From Publishers Weekly
Walker, Washington bureau chief for Britain's Guardian , here traces the course of the Cold War from Yalta in 1945 through the Korean War, the Kennedy-Khrushchev confrontations, Vietnam, the "New Cold War" during the Reagan administration, the advent of glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev and the "year of miracles" (1989) which brought down the Berlin Wall. The author is concerned with demonstrating, first, that the superpowers found limited responses to crises (the Berlin blockade and airlift didn't grow into a direct military confrontation; the Korean War didn't spread throughout Asia) and, second, how the stability resulting from the Cold War balance of power set the stage for a new international economic system. This cogent reevaluation of the Cold War as a form of economic competition argues that its end marked a shift away from the geo-strategic toward the geo-economic and an accelerated expansion of world trade.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
With the Cold War over, a spate of books are beginning to appear trying to explain what it all meant. Like Edward Pessen's recent Losing Our Souls: The American Experience in the Cold War or H.W. Brands's The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War (both LJ 11/1/93), Walker, U.S. bureau chief for London's the Guardian, goes over familiar ground, treading the same turf diplomatic historians have charted for the past 20 years. For an experienced journalist, Walker's prose is restrained and sometimes tedious. His most interesting point is his comparison of the last years of Brezhnev's rule with that of George Bush's presidency, arguing that both administrations dealt feebly with domestic issues, much to the detriment of their respective populations. For Walker, America's challenge will be how it can best fight the new war for control of the global economy. For general collections and for those emphasizing contemporary history and politics.
Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Publisher : Henry Holt & Co (January 1, 1994)
Language : English
Hardcover : 392 pages
Publisher : Henry Holt & Co (January 1, 1994)
Language : English
Hardcover : 392 pages
Customer Reviews:
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 55 ratings
About the author
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Martin Walker
Former foreign correspondent in USSR, USA, Europe and Africa for the Guardian (UK), author of histories of the Cold War and 20th century USA, and of studies of Gorbachev, Clinton, the extreme right etc.
Now I write mystery stories set in the Perigord region of rural France, home of truffles, foie gras, great cheeses and wonderful wines.
In 2013, I was made a chevalier of foie gras, in the confrerie of pate de Perigueux, and also an honorary Ambassador of the Perigord, which means I get to accompany the traveling exhibition of the Lascaux cave as it goes on display at museums around the world. I also help promote the wines of Bergerac at international wine fairs, and was chairman of the jury for this year's Prix Ragueneau, the international culinary prize,
The hero of my mystery stories is Bruno, a French country policeman and former soldier who was wounded while serving it UN peacekeepers during the siege of Sarajevo. Bruno hunts, cooks, tries never to arrest anyone and, hates to carry his gun (but sometimes must. He loves his basset hound, his horse and a complicated array of firmly independent women.
The Perigord also contains more medieval castles per square kilometre than anywhere else on earth and is home to the prehistoric paintings of the Lascaux cave. Most of what we know of prehistory comes from this valley of the river Vezere, where humans have lived continuously for some 70,000 years or more. Devoted to the area and his adopted home of the small town of St Denis, Bruno instinctively understands why our ancestors chose this spot
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From the United States
AMK
5.0 out of 5 stars A close read of this well written book would pretty much explain how society worked in the second half ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2018
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A mature assessment of four decades of Cold War tension. A close read of this well written book would pretty much explain how society worked in the second half of the 20th century.
3 people found this helpful
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Aeiou
5.0 out of 5 stars If David Calleo requires it . . .
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2002
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Although I have not read this book, I picked it up years ago, and only recently in cleaning did I donate it to the local library. Much to my dismay, upon returning to school (Johns Hopkis School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)), to complete my masters, David Calleo, one of my professors and a godfather of European studies, requires this text for his class. If David Calleo requires it, then it can't be that bad. I will update the review when I finish the book and the class.
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Al Singh
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book on an important subject
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2013
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Read this book years ago, but it was worth rereading. This is mostly told from the Western and American side, chronicling the steps and missteps that American policy makers took to counter the threat of communist expansionism. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan all get their share of due credit, but ironically the President on whose watch the Cold War ended, George Herbert Walker Bush, is described as "sleepwalking through history" during the critical moments of the unraveling of the Soviet Union. There is indeed some evidence that Bush saw the demise of the Soviet Union as a threat to stability and the established order and actually sought to slow down the process somewhat rather than aid and abet it. But it is Gorbachev and not any Western leader who really emerges as the key actor in this phenomenon, although what he brought about was surely not what he intended. This was a good book, opinionated but fairly evenhanded, definitely at the top of the list on CW history.
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Archie Woodworth
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2017
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Great book - incredible detail and insight - I lived through it and now I understand it!
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jojo
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2018
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Fine product and quick delivery
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Chuck Strauss
5.0 out of 5 stars The Cold War-- a History
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2013
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A super book-- detailing events and the historical characters involved, who acted and reacted in my younger lifetime that I had no idea occurred!
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Michael E Sweeney
4.0 out of 5 stars Brenton Woods mentioned during discussion of US_Vietnam war
Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2023
I don't know enough about economics to understand why (p. 211) the US had to sell $400 million of gold in 1968 and why, because de Gaulle refused to participate, only central banks were now permitted (by whom?) to buy gold.
Mostly a long-winded editorial Best skipped.
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bookmanswake
5.0 out of 5 stars Relevant in 2023 and beyond
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2023
He quotes Nixon on the second to last page where he predicts the rise of a Putin-like figure. Well worth reading this dense, but well-written history and can still contribute to our understanding of our current times.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2015
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Seemed a bit clinical for such a hot button issue.
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Dawn McGinnis
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2016
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==
From the United States
Scrapple8
4.0 out of 5 stars Read this after another introduction to the cold war
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2013
Martin Walker analyzed the fifty-year standoff between Communism and Capitalism in his book `The Cold War: A History.' Walker traced the mistrust that quickly grew between the allies of World War II into the frosty relationship between two world superpowers until the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. For good measure, Walker extended the story a couple of years to better assess the aftereffects of the conflict.
Walker interpreted the events of the Cold War, rushing headstrong into the political and economic effects of each milestone while keeping a balanced vision among not only the two superpowers, but also the European allies and sometimes China. Walker accomplished an admirable feat of delivering objective analysis of the Cold War with a global viewpoint. Students of Political Science have their text of the Cold War, but what about those who want to first learn about the events themselves before studying the analysis of them?
In some respects, Walker leaves the reader with a `Cold War Gap' about the actual events of the era. His casual mention of the Rosenberg case and Joe McCarthy do not provide sufficient detailed knowledge about these pertinent topics of the Cold War era. His brisk overviews of the two American Wars during the Cold War assume the reader has already read about them. Walker mentions the Grenada invasion in the early 1980s but gives no details about the medical students or any explanation about why Reagan justified the invasion. I cannot even recall if he explained the civil war in Angola or the Somalia / Ethiopia conflict or the Allende election in Chile. While Walker mentioned all of the events, he wrote about some of them as though we already know what happened.
A book such as Cold War: An Illustrated History by Jeremy Isaacs and Taylor Downing fills the Cold War Gap. The Isaacs & Downing book contains the breadth of facts, names, and details of the Cold War beyond a survey of United States History without getting bogged down in the complicated theory of Walker's book, or assuming that the reader knows about the hot spots of the Cold War.
There are some cases where Walker provided some good explanations of Cold War events. He outlined the Suez Crisis in October 1956, the Iranian Revolution on 1978, and the Afghan turmoil that led to Russia's reluctant invasion in December of 1979.
In most cases, though, Walker takes the reader beyond the events of the Cold War. I would have preferred to read the Isaacs & Downing book before reading this book, but nobody advised me to do so. I found a syllabus on the internet from a teacher at NYU named Molly Nolan who used the book as her primary text for a course on the Cold War. The course calls the Walker book a basic survey text on the Cold War, but Walker's analysis is anything but basic.
Walker's book is the `major leagues' of the Cold War. A book such as the Isaacs & Downing book is the minor leagues, but if you need the seasoning, a few months in the minors is not a bad idea.
The version of the book that I read with ISN `9780805034547' has the familiar nuclear fallout shelter symbol with a cherry red background. There are a few typos in the text but no egregious errors.
Global economic theory can sometimes have a sobering effect on a reader, but it is an important component of the Cold War - and Walker's book does a good job at giving you the dope on the economics of the Cold War. His insightful coverage of the Cold War is best appreciated by students who already know the major events of the era.
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Raisuli the Magnificent
5.0 out of 5 stars Good compelling overview of the Cold War.
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2017
A really outstanding read regarding the struggle between the United States of America and the Soviet Union from post WW2 beginnings to the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond.
I initially bought this book for a class, and read it the week before the semester started to keep abreast of it, and once I started reading it I simply couldn't put it down. I typically don't read a whole lot of non-fiction because much of it is opinion and not very compelling, but this book really hit the nail on the head on every aspect of the Cold War. From Churchill's speech about the so-called Iron Curtain, to Brezhnev's reforms, and everything in-between and more.
Walker looks at Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Japan, the Middle East, Central and South America, the spy wars in Europe, and just about everything and every aspect of the Cold War.
I remember those days. I remember being born and growing up in the wake of the Vietnam War, with lots of social upheavals taking place around the nation, and in particular on the campuses of San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley. Race riots, arms control, who pushed where, and what were the results, and just everything you ever wondered about.
It was a strange time to grown up and come of age in. And this book captures some of that spirit, some of that odd feeling of how the US and the USSR could annihilate one another at any moment. And yet it didn't happen. For all of the proxy wars raging in Central America, Vietnam, Africa and wherever else, including some face to face fighting in the Korean War, as well as a major standoff over Russian missiles in Cuba, we never let the nuclear genie out of the bottle. We're still here.
And that's the amazing thing about this book, because it tells the reader the chronology and major events with the feel of what was going on at the time. How we survived is amazing. But truth be told, how we survived was how all species have on this planet, by taking one day at a time.
I wish I could remember more of the particulars to recommend this book, but needless to say if you grew up during the 20th century, and were either here in North America or in Europe, then this book should resonate with you.
Give it a shot. Enjoy.
===
King
4.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended!
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2008
The Cold War: A History contains a lot of history to get through. In 357 pages, it covers world history as driven by the Cold War from its beginnings in the 1940's all the way up and including the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. All the usual suspects are included: Stalin, Khrushchev, Truman, Chiang Kai-shek, Eisenhower and Kennedy, just to name a few. Of course, other players are sprinkled throughout the text.
The Cold war was called "cold" because traditional fighting techniques such as bombings. Air raids and ground troops weren't used. Instead, the Cold War was waged with deceit, assassinations, selective economic pressures and third party military encounters - which is just another way of saying that you got other people to fight your battles for you.
I found the book exceedingly interesting and eye-popping, especially to the extent that the Cold War drove world history for so many decades. We're talking almost fifty years. Korea, Vietnam, the wars of Africa, the Suez Canal. Israel, the mid-East and Desert Storm, Sputnik and the race for the Moon were either directly or indirectly brought about by the Cold War. Imagine everything hat spun off from those events. It's staggering. Like millions of other people, I grew up and spent the major part of my life during the Cold War, so to some degree, the Cold War made us who we are today.
I recommend this book to anybody interested in the history of civilization
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Francois-Xavier Jette
4.0 out of 5 stars good read
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2008
Walker's book is very complete. He doesn't spend as much time on every event of the cold war, but he omits none.
Walker is also very objective. Probably because he doesn't discuss in gruesome detail the bloodbaths of the Hungarian uprising and the crushing of the Prague Spring, he also refrains from emphasizing the horrors resulting from US policy in Taiwan, Guatemala, Grenada, and many other countries in the third world (for that you need to read the not-so-objective "Killing Hope" by William Blum).
Much of the focus of the book is on the relation between the US, the Soviets, and the Western Europeans, with the main events that took place in the third world included but not analyzed as deeply. He also focusses on the mutual influences between the cold war and world economy and finance, particularly near the end of the book.
I found at times that the writing could have been less convoluted and more to the point, but the book as a whole reads well. For Cold War histories, I still prefer Walter Lafeber's book. But Walker did a good job of discussing what Lafeber only superficially touched in his book. So the two books complement each other very well.
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The m
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book, poor finish.
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2003
This book is a good overview of the cold war, and covers the major events, often drawing on hard-to-find sources.
It's also pretty balanced, not conservative, and not terribly liberal. I almost stopped reading when Walker drew a weak parallel between the resistance to racial integration in the American South to the Soviet massacre of 3,000 innocent Hungarians in 1956, but this was the only abomination before the last chapter of the book, so I continued. (HOW can a person compare American police using riot-tactics to Soviet tank crews mopping Hungarian-puree off their tank treads?)
However, in the final chapter, Walker unfairly criticizes America as having won the Cold War, but having more in common with the USSR than her European allies. For example, Walker dared to compare the 100-some executions of convicted criminals in America to the millions of innocents and dissidents murdered by Communist repression.
So, up to the last chapter, this is an excellent book, but it tapers off dramatically.
10 people found this helpful
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T. Ralph Lyman
5.0 out of 5 stars Teachers: use this as your textbook!!!
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2007
I took an International Baccalaureate (IB) History course my senior year (along with all other IB subjects) and this was, for all intents and purposes, our textbook for the majority of the year. It was an incredible resource that helped me and my peers get an fresh look at this time period and the heavy use of political subtlety that took place. We realized why it was actually a "war" (it moved us away from the fifth grade formula of 'it was a fight between capitalism and communism that didn't use guns so that's why it was cold') and developed our skills in analyzing the author's viewpoints. If there are any teachers of gifted/accelerated history courses out there, this is your choice for great Cold War material that can be appreciated by 17/18 year olds.
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Michael Jones
4.0 out of 5 stars The Cold War is a hot read
Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2000
A very good outline of 1945-1991 and a couple of years afterwards. I learned a lot of new things about the conflict (that the Soviets didn't really want to invade Afghanistan, JFK was elected on an anti-Communist hawk platform, Britain since WWII), although I do agree with other reviewers that he left out many things. Walker spends about 70% of his time on the west and 30% on the Soviets in each decade, so the Evil Empire's motives and actions are a bit murky. Britain from the mid-sixties to the Thatcher era is dropped. And he does spend a lot of time on the economic markets of post-war Europe & Japan, that while interesting to me at first, I bought the book for history not economics. But those are just quibbles. Overall, the book is a good start for anyone wanting to know about the Cold War.
6 people found this helpful
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Lehigh History Student
5.0 out of 5 stars Great balanced work
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2006
While there are many books on the Cold war this one has to be the best. It is the only book I have read that uses voluminous research from not only the American side but the Russian side as well. If you are looking for that fair and balanced viewpoint than this is the place to start. Walker writes very well and covers the relevant aspects of the war including détente. It focuses mostly on the power that the two exhibit and sticks with diplomatic history. There is some discussion of third world (with the exception of Cuba, Vietnam and Egypt) otherwise it really focuses on Europe. Nonetheless it deserves its five stars and is the only book I ever recommend when someone wants to read about the cold war.
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K. N. Hari Kumar
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2005
The most brilliant, unbiased, and usefull book for my history class. I might add it was the also the most enjoyable read of all the textbooks i have ever encountered during my life. I can see how this book may seem biased to all those neo-conservative Americans learning from American books and from Fox news, however to me this (along with Lundestad) was the extremely unbiased. It packs in an amazing amount of information in 350 pages and just blows your mind away. Another judge of the brilliance of the book is the wide variety of sources - from garthoff to Brzezinski to Carter to Johnson to Kruschev and Brezhnev. Hats off to a great achievement. A milestone in history.
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dan
5.0 out of 5 stars amazing!
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2003
in an age where it seems to be accepted that ronald reagan won the cold war against the evil and godless commies, it was wonderful to see such an openminded history. walker tells it like it is, regardless of what the american establishment would want you to think. which isn't at all to say that this book glorifies the ussr... stalin's purges and gulag are given due space, as are the atrocities of eastern europe. but walker does not shy away from dean acheson and john dulles's dishonest exaggerations of the soviet threat, reagan's illegal wars and democracy-toppling, the stupidity and moral hypocricy of vietnam, and the strongly political machinations behind the scenes in washington. walker has done his research, and his arguments are fact-based through and through. the only person who really comes out seeming good is mikhail gorbachev, although even he was eventually phased out by his own revolution. definitely worth looking into, especially if you want to be able to understand the cold war objectively.
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From the United States
Douglas Doepke
5.0 out of 5 stars A well-distributed overview
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2000
It's always risky buying books off the shelf, especially on controversial subjects like the Cold War. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised by Martin Walker's history of that vexed period. He strives for a balanced and non-partisan approach, and succeeds admirably. This is no small accomplishment, given the kinds of pressures, commercial and ideological, to cast the contest as one pitting the Free World (us) against the Evil Empire (them). Wisely, Walker avoids such reductionist thinking.
Basically, the contest that emerges is between two very complex empires, each striving for domination of the other. And if the West emerges victorious as it did, it's not because of any inherent moral superiority, but because its institutions ultimately proved more efficient at producing both guns and butter. Astutely, Walker avoids divisive moral comparisons, since to do so would entail endless rounds of which side commited the greater atrocities, about which there is considerable blame on both sides.
Highlighting the book is the little gem of a chapter on the Cuban missile crisis, a dramatic account that once again shows why war is too important to be left to the generals. If the book has a fault, it's the occasional absence of tissues to connect events from one chapter to the next. Thus important threads sometimes dangle. This is probably unavoidable for a relatively brief account that covers such a densely packed 50 year time period. Thus Walker's book emerges as an excellent short history of those events that shaped the lives of so many of us.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Dense but enjoyable
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2000
Walker's depth of knowledge is on display here - it is impressive to say the least. For a reader who is not familiar with the key political players and events of the Cold War, this in-depth look at the Cold War is intimidating at first. However, Walker does a commendable job of stating his argument early on and supporting it with both primary and secondary sources (even if one has qualms with his "no one's fault" argument). The argument is logically traced from Yalta to the fall of communism and makes for an altogether enjoyable read.
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Jerry Saperstein
1.0 out of 5 stars Revisionist history is not history
Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2004
The Cold War: A History is an exercise in deceptive marketing. This is revisionist history. Biased, slanted and laden with omissions. The Soviet Union - which murdered millions of its citizens - is presented as a bland protagonist that ultimately found its way through Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev and, if Marxist Leninism had only been given a fair chance, would have become the Worker's Paradise its progandists had proclaimed in 1917.
Walker's disdain for the United States could not be clearer. The United States is the ultimate source of all evil in the world. The Soviet repression of its own citizens and those in its satellites and foreign clients are essentially ignored or glossed over.
Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush are pilloried along party lines - and I don't mean the Democratic or Republican parties. Rather Reagan is evaluated by the criteria of European, primarily French, intellectuals who really haven't accomplished much of practical value over the past few centuries.
This is a cruel book because it supresses the truth while proclaiming itself to be truthful. I pity those people who read this so-called history and feel enlightened, for they will be the very people who allow the tragedies and horrors concealed by Walker to happen again.
Jerry
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Joseph Rogash
2.0 out of 5 stars Boring with serious omissions
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2001
This overview of the cold war suffers from serious omissions. First, Walker neglects to describe some of the darker aspects of the cold war such as the crimes and atrocities associated with both Soviet and US backed puppet dictators. In particular, he never discusses how the US overthrew democratically elected governments in Latin America and replaced them with brutal dictatorships friendly to American businesses...Guatamala especially comes to mind. The oppression of Eastern Europe as it came under Soviet domination under Stalin also deserves more attention.
Second...the role of China in the cold war could also have been discussed and analysed in far more detail. Being the most populated country in the world, the Communist victory in China indeed was of extreme significance, especially during the Korean war when over a million Chinese troops fought the U.N. forces in bloody battles. China also played an important role in providing weapons and resources to North Vietnam in the Vietnam War thus prolonging a conflict which the U.S. ultimately lost.
Another aspect of the Cold War given little attention relates to the third world conflicts. A number of Soviet client states were established in the Middle East, including Egypt, and this contributed to the Arab-Israeli conflicts, especially the 1973 War. The civil wars in such countries as Angola and Ehtiopia, both related to Communist revolutionary insurgencies and takeovers also get minimal coverage.
Instead the author elaborates on such convoluted and monotonous topics as how the Cold War distorted the world monetary-financial systems. Thus besides failing to discuss important topics the author takes an exciting and intriguing subject and presents it in a boring and tedious manner.
9 people found this helpful
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Antonio De La Cruz
2.0 out of 5 stars Communism's genocidal tendencies DO warrant a moral contrast
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2000
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 55 ratings
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Martin Walker
Former foreign correspondent in USSR, USA, Europe and Africa for the Guardian (UK), author of histories of the Cold War and 20th century USA, and of studies of Gorbachev, Clinton, the extreme right etc.
Now I write mystery stories set in the Perigord region of rural France, home of truffles, foie gras, great cheeses and wonderful wines.
In 2013, I was made a chevalier of foie gras, in the confrerie of pate de Perigueux, and also an honorary Ambassador of the Perigord, which means I get to accompany the traveling exhibition of the Lascaux cave as it goes on display at museums around the world. I also help promote the wines of Bergerac at international wine fairs, and was chairman of the jury for this year's Prix Ragueneau, the international culinary prize,
The hero of my mystery stories is Bruno, a French country policeman and former soldier who was wounded while serving it UN peacekeepers during the siege of Sarajevo. Bruno hunts, cooks, tries never to arrest anyone and, hates to carry his gun (but sometimes must. He loves his basset hound, his horse and a complicated array of firmly independent women.
The Perigord also contains more medieval castles per square kilometre than anywhere else on earth and is home to the prehistoric paintings of the Lascaux cave. Most of what we know of prehistory comes from this valley of the river Vezere, where humans have lived continuously for some 70,000 years or more. Devoted to the area and his adopted home of the small town of St Denis, Bruno instinctively understands why our ancestors chose this spot
=====
From the United States
AMK
5.0 out of 5 stars A close read of this well written book would pretty much explain how society worked in the second half ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2018
Verified Purchase
A mature assessment of four decades of Cold War tension. A close read of this well written book would pretty much explain how society worked in the second half of the 20th century.
3 people found this helpful
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Aeiou
5.0 out of 5 stars If David Calleo requires it . . .
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2002
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Although I have not read this book, I picked it up years ago, and only recently in cleaning did I donate it to the local library. Much to my dismay, upon returning to school (Johns Hopkis School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)), to complete my masters, David Calleo, one of my professors and a godfather of European studies, requires this text for his class. If David Calleo requires it, then it can't be that bad. I will update the review when I finish the book and the class.
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Al Singh
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book on an important subject
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2013
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Read this book years ago, but it was worth rereading. This is mostly told from the Western and American side, chronicling the steps and missteps that American policy makers took to counter the threat of communist expansionism. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan all get their share of due credit, but ironically the President on whose watch the Cold War ended, George Herbert Walker Bush, is described as "sleepwalking through history" during the critical moments of the unraveling of the Soviet Union. There is indeed some evidence that Bush saw the demise of the Soviet Union as a threat to stability and the established order and actually sought to slow down the process somewhat rather than aid and abet it. But it is Gorbachev and not any Western leader who really emerges as the key actor in this phenomenon, although what he brought about was surely not what he intended. This was a good book, opinionated but fairly evenhanded, definitely at the top of the list on CW history.
9 people found this helpful
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Archie Woodworth
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2017
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Great book - incredible detail and insight - I lived through it and now I understand it!
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jojo
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2018
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Fine product and quick delivery
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Chuck Strauss
5.0 out of 5 stars The Cold War-- a History
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2013
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A super book-- detailing events and the historical characters involved, who acted and reacted in my younger lifetime that I had no idea occurred!
One person found this helpful
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Michael E Sweeney
4.0 out of 5 stars Brenton Woods mentioned during discussion of US_Vietnam war
Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2023
I don't know enough about economics to understand why (p. 211) the US had to sell $400 million of gold in 1968 and why, because de Gaulle refused to participate, only central banks were now permitted (by whom?) to buy gold.
Mostly a long-winded editorial Best skipped.
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bookmanswake
5.0 out of 5 stars Relevant in 2023 and beyond
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2023
He quotes Nixon on the second to last page where he predicts the rise of a Putin-like figure. Well worth reading this dense, but well-written history and can still contribute to our understanding of our current times.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2015
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Seemed a bit clinical for such a hot button issue.
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Dawn McGinnis
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2016
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:)
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From the United States
Scrapple8
4.0 out of 5 stars Read this after another introduction to the cold war
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2013
Martin Walker analyzed the fifty-year standoff between Communism and Capitalism in his book `The Cold War: A History.' Walker traced the mistrust that quickly grew between the allies of World War II into the frosty relationship between two world superpowers until the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. For good measure, Walker extended the story a couple of years to better assess the aftereffects of the conflict.
Walker interpreted the events of the Cold War, rushing headstrong into the political and economic effects of each milestone while keeping a balanced vision among not only the two superpowers, but also the European allies and sometimes China. Walker accomplished an admirable feat of delivering objective analysis of the Cold War with a global viewpoint. Students of Political Science have their text of the Cold War, but what about those who want to first learn about the events themselves before studying the analysis of them?
In some respects, Walker leaves the reader with a `Cold War Gap' about the actual events of the era. His casual mention of the Rosenberg case and Joe McCarthy do not provide sufficient detailed knowledge about these pertinent topics of the Cold War era. His brisk overviews of the two American Wars during the Cold War assume the reader has already read about them. Walker mentions the Grenada invasion in the early 1980s but gives no details about the medical students or any explanation about why Reagan justified the invasion. I cannot even recall if he explained the civil war in Angola or the Somalia / Ethiopia conflict or the Allende election in Chile. While Walker mentioned all of the events, he wrote about some of them as though we already know what happened.
A book such as Cold War: An Illustrated History by Jeremy Isaacs and Taylor Downing fills the Cold War Gap. The Isaacs & Downing book contains the breadth of facts, names, and details of the Cold War beyond a survey of United States History without getting bogged down in the complicated theory of Walker's book, or assuming that the reader knows about the hot spots of the Cold War.
There are some cases where Walker provided some good explanations of Cold War events. He outlined the Suez Crisis in October 1956, the Iranian Revolution on 1978, and the Afghan turmoil that led to Russia's reluctant invasion in December of 1979.
In most cases, though, Walker takes the reader beyond the events of the Cold War. I would have preferred to read the Isaacs & Downing book before reading this book, but nobody advised me to do so. I found a syllabus on the internet from a teacher at NYU named Molly Nolan who used the book as her primary text for a course on the Cold War. The course calls the Walker book a basic survey text on the Cold War, but Walker's analysis is anything but basic.
Walker's book is the `major leagues' of the Cold War. A book such as the Isaacs & Downing book is the minor leagues, but if you need the seasoning, a few months in the minors is not a bad idea.
The version of the book that I read with ISN `9780805034547' has the familiar nuclear fallout shelter symbol with a cherry red background. There are a few typos in the text but no egregious errors.
Global economic theory can sometimes have a sobering effect on a reader, but it is an important component of the Cold War - and Walker's book does a good job at giving you the dope on the economics of the Cold War. His insightful coverage of the Cold War is best appreciated by students who already know the major events of the era.
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Raisuli the Magnificent
5.0 out of 5 stars Good compelling overview of the Cold War.
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2017
A really outstanding read regarding the struggle between the United States of America and the Soviet Union from post WW2 beginnings to the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond.
I initially bought this book for a class, and read it the week before the semester started to keep abreast of it, and once I started reading it I simply couldn't put it down. I typically don't read a whole lot of non-fiction because much of it is opinion and not very compelling, but this book really hit the nail on the head on every aspect of the Cold War. From Churchill's speech about the so-called Iron Curtain, to Brezhnev's reforms, and everything in-between and more.
Walker looks at Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Japan, the Middle East, Central and South America, the spy wars in Europe, and just about everything and every aspect of the Cold War.
I remember those days. I remember being born and growing up in the wake of the Vietnam War, with lots of social upheavals taking place around the nation, and in particular on the campuses of San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley. Race riots, arms control, who pushed where, and what were the results, and just everything you ever wondered about.
It was a strange time to grown up and come of age in. And this book captures some of that spirit, some of that odd feeling of how the US and the USSR could annihilate one another at any moment. And yet it didn't happen. For all of the proxy wars raging in Central America, Vietnam, Africa and wherever else, including some face to face fighting in the Korean War, as well as a major standoff over Russian missiles in Cuba, we never let the nuclear genie out of the bottle. We're still here.
And that's the amazing thing about this book, because it tells the reader the chronology and major events with the feel of what was going on at the time. How we survived is amazing. But truth be told, how we survived was how all species have on this planet, by taking one day at a time.
I wish I could remember more of the particulars to recommend this book, but needless to say if you grew up during the 20th century, and were either here in North America or in Europe, then this book should resonate with you.
Give it a shot. Enjoy.
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King
4.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended!
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2008
The Cold War: A History contains a lot of history to get through. In 357 pages, it covers world history as driven by the Cold War from its beginnings in the 1940's all the way up and including the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. All the usual suspects are included: Stalin, Khrushchev, Truman, Chiang Kai-shek, Eisenhower and Kennedy, just to name a few. Of course, other players are sprinkled throughout the text.
The Cold war was called "cold" because traditional fighting techniques such as bombings. Air raids and ground troops weren't used. Instead, the Cold War was waged with deceit, assassinations, selective economic pressures and third party military encounters - which is just another way of saying that you got other people to fight your battles for you.
I found the book exceedingly interesting and eye-popping, especially to the extent that the Cold War drove world history for so many decades. We're talking almost fifty years. Korea, Vietnam, the wars of Africa, the Suez Canal. Israel, the mid-East and Desert Storm, Sputnik and the race for the Moon were either directly or indirectly brought about by the Cold War. Imagine everything hat spun off from those events. It's staggering. Like millions of other people, I grew up and spent the major part of my life during the Cold War, so to some degree, the Cold War made us who we are today.
I recommend this book to anybody interested in the history of civilization
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Francois-Xavier Jette
4.0 out of 5 stars good read
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2008
Walker's book is very complete. He doesn't spend as much time on every event of the cold war, but he omits none.
Walker is also very objective. Probably because he doesn't discuss in gruesome detail the bloodbaths of the Hungarian uprising and the crushing of the Prague Spring, he also refrains from emphasizing the horrors resulting from US policy in Taiwan, Guatemala, Grenada, and many other countries in the third world (for that you need to read the not-so-objective "Killing Hope" by William Blum).
Much of the focus of the book is on the relation between the US, the Soviets, and the Western Europeans, with the main events that took place in the third world included but not analyzed as deeply. He also focusses on the mutual influences between the cold war and world economy and finance, particularly near the end of the book.
I found at times that the writing could have been less convoluted and more to the point, but the book as a whole reads well. For Cold War histories, I still prefer Walter Lafeber's book. But Walker did a good job of discussing what Lafeber only superficially touched in his book. So the two books complement each other very well.
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The m
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book, poor finish.
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2003
This book is a good overview of the cold war, and covers the major events, often drawing on hard-to-find sources.
It's also pretty balanced, not conservative, and not terribly liberal. I almost stopped reading when Walker drew a weak parallel between the resistance to racial integration in the American South to the Soviet massacre of 3,000 innocent Hungarians in 1956, but this was the only abomination before the last chapter of the book, so I continued. (HOW can a person compare American police using riot-tactics to Soviet tank crews mopping Hungarian-puree off their tank treads?)
However, in the final chapter, Walker unfairly criticizes America as having won the Cold War, but having more in common with the USSR than her European allies. For example, Walker dared to compare the 100-some executions of convicted criminals in America to the millions of innocents and dissidents murdered by Communist repression.
So, up to the last chapter, this is an excellent book, but it tapers off dramatically.
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T. Ralph Lyman
5.0 out of 5 stars Teachers: use this as your textbook!!!
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2007
I took an International Baccalaureate (IB) History course my senior year (along with all other IB subjects) and this was, for all intents and purposes, our textbook for the majority of the year. It was an incredible resource that helped me and my peers get an fresh look at this time period and the heavy use of political subtlety that took place. We realized why it was actually a "war" (it moved us away from the fifth grade formula of 'it was a fight between capitalism and communism that didn't use guns so that's why it was cold') and developed our skills in analyzing the author's viewpoints. If there are any teachers of gifted/accelerated history courses out there, this is your choice for great Cold War material that can be appreciated by 17/18 year olds.
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Michael Jones
4.0 out of 5 stars The Cold War is a hot read
Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2000
A very good outline of 1945-1991 and a couple of years afterwards. I learned a lot of new things about the conflict (that the Soviets didn't really want to invade Afghanistan, JFK was elected on an anti-Communist hawk platform, Britain since WWII), although I do agree with other reviewers that he left out many things. Walker spends about 70% of his time on the west and 30% on the Soviets in each decade, so the Evil Empire's motives and actions are a bit murky. Britain from the mid-sixties to the Thatcher era is dropped. And he does spend a lot of time on the economic markets of post-war Europe & Japan, that while interesting to me at first, I bought the book for history not economics. But those are just quibbles. Overall, the book is a good start for anyone wanting to know about the Cold War.
6 people found this helpful
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Lehigh History Student
5.0 out of 5 stars Great balanced work
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2006
While there are many books on the Cold war this one has to be the best. It is the only book I have read that uses voluminous research from not only the American side but the Russian side as well. If you are looking for that fair and balanced viewpoint than this is the place to start. Walker writes very well and covers the relevant aspects of the war including détente. It focuses mostly on the power that the two exhibit and sticks with diplomatic history. There is some discussion of third world (with the exception of Cuba, Vietnam and Egypt) otherwise it really focuses on Europe. Nonetheless it deserves its five stars and is the only book I ever recommend when someone wants to read about the cold war.
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K. N. Hari Kumar
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2005
The most brilliant, unbiased, and usefull book for my history class. I might add it was the also the most enjoyable read of all the textbooks i have ever encountered during my life. I can see how this book may seem biased to all those neo-conservative Americans learning from American books and from Fox news, however to me this (along with Lundestad) was the extremely unbiased. It packs in an amazing amount of information in 350 pages and just blows your mind away. Another judge of the brilliance of the book is the wide variety of sources - from garthoff to Brzezinski to Carter to Johnson to Kruschev and Brezhnev. Hats off to a great achievement. A milestone in history.
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dan
5.0 out of 5 stars amazing!
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2003
in an age where it seems to be accepted that ronald reagan won the cold war against the evil and godless commies, it was wonderful to see such an openminded history. walker tells it like it is, regardless of what the american establishment would want you to think. which isn't at all to say that this book glorifies the ussr... stalin's purges and gulag are given due space, as are the atrocities of eastern europe. but walker does not shy away from dean acheson and john dulles's dishonest exaggerations of the soviet threat, reagan's illegal wars and democracy-toppling, the stupidity and moral hypocricy of vietnam, and the strongly political machinations behind the scenes in washington. walker has done his research, and his arguments are fact-based through and through. the only person who really comes out seeming good is mikhail gorbachev, although even he was eventually phased out by his own revolution. definitely worth looking into, especially if you want to be able to understand the cold war objectively.
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From the United States
Douglas Doepke
5.0 out of 5 stars A well-distributed overview
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2000
It's always risky buying books off the shelf, especially on controversial subjects like the Cold War. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised by Martin Walker's history of that vexed period. He strives for a balanced and non-partisan approach, and succeeds admirably. This is no small accomplishment, given the kinds of pressures, commercial and ideological, to cast the contest as one pitting the Free World (us) against the Evil Empire (them). Wisely, Walker avoids such reductionist thinking.
Basically, the contest that emerges is between two very complex empires, each striving for domination of the other. And if the West emerges victorious as it did, it's not because of any inherent moral superiority, but because its institutions ultimately proved more efficient at producing both guns and butter. Astutely, Walker avoids divisive moral comparisons, since to do so would entail endless rounds of which side commited the greater atrocities, about which there is considerable blame on both sides.
Highlighting the book is the little gem of a chapter on the Cuban missile crisis, a dramatic account that once again shows why war is too important to be left to the generals. If the book has a fault, it's the occasional absence of tissues to connect events from one chapter to the next. Thus important threads sometimes dangle. This is probably unavoidable for a relatively brief account that covers such a densely packed 50 year time period. Thus Walker's book emerges as an excellent short history of those events that shaped the lives of so many of us.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Dense but enjoyable
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2000
Walker's depth of knowledge is on display here - it is impressive to say the least. For a reader who is not familiar with the key political players and events of the Cold War, this in-depth look at the Cold War is intimidating at first. However, Walker does a commendable job of stating his argument early on and supporting it with both primary and secondary sources (even if one has qualms with his "no one's fault" argument). The argument is logically traced from Yalta to the fall of communism and makes for an altogether enjoyable read.
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Jerry Saperstein
1.0 out of 5 stars Revisionist history is not history
Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2004
The Cold War: A History is an exercise in deceptive marketing. This is revisionist history. Biased, slanted and laden with omissions. The Soviet Union - which murdered millions of its citizens - is presented as a bland protagonist that ultimately found its way through Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev and, if Marxist Leninism had only been given a fair chance, would have become the Worker's Paradise its progandists had proclaimed in 1917.
Walker's disdain for the United States could not be clearer. The United States is the ultimate source of all evil in the world. The Soviet repression of its own citizens and those in its satellites and foreign clients are essentially ignored or glossed over.
Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush are pilloried along party lines - and I don't mean the Democratic or Republican parties. Rather Reagan is evaluated by the criteria of European, primarily French, intellectuals who really haven't accomplished much of practical value over the past few centuries.
This is a cruel book because it supresses the truth while proclaiming itself to be truthful. I pity those people who read this so-called history and feel enlightened, for they will be the very people who allow the tragedies and horrors concealed by Walker to happen again.
Jerry
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Joseph Rogash
2.0 out of 5 stars Boring with serious omissions
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2001
This overview of the cold war suffers from serious omissions. First, Walker neglects to describe some of the darker aspects of the cold war such as the crimes and atrocities associated with both Soviet and US backed puppet dictators. In particular, he never discusses how the US overthrew democratically elected governments in Latin America and replaced them with brutal dictatorships friendly to American businesses...Guatamala especially comes to mind. The oppression of Eastern Europe as it came under Soviet domination under Stalin also deserves more attention.
Second...the role of China in the cold war could also have been discussed and analysed in far more detail. Being the most populated country in the world, the Communist victory in China indeed was of extreme significance, especially during the Korean war when over a million Chinese troops fought the U.N. forces in bloody battles. China also played an important role in providing weapons and resources to North Vietnam in the Vietnam War thus prolonging a conflict which the U.S. ultimately lost.
Another aspect of the Cold War given little attention relates to the third world conflicts. A number of Soviet client states were established in the Middle East, including Egypt, and this contributed to the Arab-Israeli conflicts, especially the 1973 War. The civil wars in such countries as Angola and Ehtiopia, both related to Communist revolutionary insurgencies and takeovers also get minimal coverage.
Instead the author elaborates on such convoluted and monotonous topics as how the Cold War distorted the world monetary-financial systems. Thus besides failing to discuss important topics the author takes an exciting and intriguing subject and presents it in a boring and tedious manner.
9 people found this helpful
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Antonio De La Cruz
2.0 out of 5 stars Communism's genocidal tendencies DO warrant a moral contrast
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2000
After Stephane Coutois'"THE BLACK BOOK OF COMMUNISM: CRIMES, REPRESSION, TERROR"
it is irresponsible to avoid making the necessary MORAL,POLITRICAl, PHILOSOPHICAL judgements and comparisons between the systems that faced each other for fifty years.
The book "THE COLD WAR:A HISTORY" by Martin Walker is a good overview of the period.It adresses the major "flashpoints"of the period,personalities involved and repercussions in the overall conflict.However,it is nowhere near the comprehensive "THE FIFTY YEAR WAR:CONFLICT AND STRATEGY IN THE COLD WAR" by Norman Friedman.Many things are quite simplified or low profiled thus giving an account not up to date to what all archival and testimonial evidence shows irrefutably:The Cold War was indeed an ideological confrontation between freedom against tyranny,that the evil we(freedom loving people those refered to as "we" are-mind you!)faced very well matched Nazi terror corpse by corpse-even surpassed it,and that the struggle was pursued agressively,relentlessly by the USSR with global hegemony as the only satisfactory end result. Should we avoid to make moral judgements about the Gulag system and its copies in Vietnam and Cuba when we make those same judgements about the Nazi concentration camp system ?Sad moral relativism....that's one of the reasons we keep making the same mistakes trough history over and over again.
"THE COLD WAR"avoidance of profound evaluation of Communism's acts that may hurt(?)those which appeased,supported or belittled the threat of Communism during the period is acting like an ostrich.The author is too timid in dealing with the nature of the USSR and its allies/satellites. So the book is not anti-communist in the same way a book dealing with WW II may not be anti-Nazi.But THAT would be a major flaw,is not it?Maybe he shied away of that in order not to be labeled "anti-communist"
Sad moral relativism....Thats why we Humans keep repeating our mistakes over and over again.And history books should be about learnig from history and not washing it out
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athomas@usaor.net
5.0 out of 5 stars In-depth view on the political aspect of the cold war.
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 1997
The writer supplied an immense amount of detail revolving around the political aspects of the cold war. Don't read this if you are looking for a military book. I thought the writer did a great job at reporting facts and leaving his bias to a minimum.
One person found this helpful
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From other countries
C
3.0 out of 5 stars This was a very good, cohesive and factual textbook that helped me alongside ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2016
Verified Purchase
This was a very good, cohesive and factual textbook that helped me alongside my A level studies. Very factually centred and lengthy in topic, great if the Cold War is a particular interest of yours. The combination of this and the somewhat smaller than average text, makes it a bit full on and strenuous. The down size is this book is hard back and can become heavy. Overall, Good quality, no rips or damages
** Please note that these are my own personal views and are in no way affiliated with any persons or company **
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"THE COLD WAR"avoidance of profound evaluation of Communism's acts that may hurt(?)those which appeased,supported or belittled the threat of Communism during the period is acting like an ostrich.The author is too timid in dealing with the nature of the USSR and its allies/satellites. So the book is not anti-communist in the same way a book dealing with WW II may not be anti-Nazi.But THAT would be a major flaw,is not it?Maybe he shied away of that in order not to be labeled "anti-communist"
Sad moral relativism....Thats why we Humans keep repeating our mistakes over and over again.And history books should be about learnig from history and not washing it out
===
athomas@usaor.net
5.0 out of 5 stars In-depth view on the political aspect of the cold war.
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 1997
The writer supplied an immense amount of detail revolving around the political aspects of the cold war. Don't read this if you are looking for a military book. I thought the writer did a great job at reporting facts and leaving his bias to a minimum.
One person found this helpful
===
From other countries
C
3.0 out of 5 stars This was a very good, cohesive and factual textbook that helped me alongside ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2016
Verified Purchase
This was a very good, cohesive and factual textbook that helped me alongside my A level studies. Very factually centred and lengthy in topic, great if the Cold War is a particular interest of yours. The combination of this and the somewhat smaller than average text, makes it a bit full on and strenuous. The down size is this book is hard back and can become heavy. Overall, Good quality, no rips or damages
** Please note that these are my own personal views and are in no way affiliated with any persons or company **
Report
===
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