The Cold War: The Great Powers and Their Allies Paperback - 2007 - 2nd Edition

From the rear cover

The Cold War 2nd Edition

J.P.D. Dunbabin

Reviews of the first edition:

'[This volume] represents quite a remarkable achievement, drawing together the results of a vast array of research on post-war international affairs in a readable and remarkably well-structured way'. "history"

'Dunbabin's comprehensive, very detailed, and well-analysed book may well become one of the standard textbooks on the Cold War'. "The Slavonic Review"

The Cold War was an extraordinary struggle for strategic world domination between the world's two great superpowers, the USA and USSR. For four decades it divided the world, and during this time all other issues of international concern were sucked into its orbit. No other global division was able to transcend the rift it created.

In this fully revised second edition, J.P.D. Dunbabin, drawing on international scholarship and using much new material from communist sources, describes a world in which covert operations could be as important as outright diplomacy, 'soft' power as influential as 'hard', and in which competing ideologies ruled the hearts as much as the heads of the leaders in power.

Dunbabin's account is global in scope, taking into account the importance of players beyond the superpowers, and shedding light on the proxy conflicts such as those in Africa and the Middle East that, if not caused by the continuing stalemate between the great powers, were used as weapons within it.

This new edition includes:

- Primary source material from the former communist regimes of soviet Russia, eastern Europe and China.

- New and detailed accounts of the Gorbachev era, the east European revolutions of 1989, the fall of the Berlin wall and German re-unification.

- New chapters on the growth of the EU, on the wars of ex-Yugoslavia, and on the stabilisation of most east European states through their attraction towards and acceptance into the EU.

- A final new chapter detailing current perceptions of the Cold War and its aftermath.

J.P.D. Dunbabin, formerly Reader in International Relations at Oxford University, has published over a wide range of topics including British and international history, The League of Nations and the United Nations.