Cold war : an illustrated history, 1945-1991

Format:

Book

Title:

Cold war : an illustrated history, 1945-1991

Author:

Isaacs, Jeremy, 1932- author.

ISBN:

9780316439534

Edition:

First edition.

Publication:

Boston : Little, Brown and Company, [1998]

Physical Description:

x, 438 pages : illustrations (some color), color maps ; 27 cm

Contents:

Comrades, 1917-1945 -- Iron Curtain, 1945-1947 -- Marshall Plan, 1947-1952 -- Berlin, 1948-1949 -- Korea, 1949-1953 -- Reds, 1948-1953 -- After Stalin, 1953-1956 -- Sputnik and the Bomb, 1949-1961 -- The wall, 1958-1963 -- Back yard : Guatemala and Cuba, 1954-1962 -- Vietnam, 1954-1968 -- MAD, 1961-1972 -- Culture wars, 1960-1968 -- Detente, 1969-1975 -- Surrogates, 1967-1978 -- Freeze, 1977-1981 -- Reagan, 1981-1984 -- Gorbachev, 1984-1988 -- People power, 1989 -- Endings, 1990-1991.

Summary:

Drawing on a wealth of recent scholarship and newly uncovered evidence, this book discusses cold war politics, superpower confrontations, and the threat of nuclear disaster that engulfed the world from the end of World War II to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Subject(s):

Cold War.

World politics -- 1945-1989.

Added Author:

Downing, Taylor

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Woodburn Public Library	909.825 ISAACS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Monmouth Public Library	909.82 Isaacs, J. 1998	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Newberg Public Library	909.825 ISAACS	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

A highly illustrated narrative history of the forty-year struggle that dominated the course of life in the second half of the twentieth century.

Reviews (2)

Kirkus Review

This heavily illustrated companion volume to a documentary series scheduled to run this fall on CNN offers a clear, succinct summary of the defining element of life in the second half of the 20th century, the (often very hot) Cold War. Isaacs and Downing, who have between them produced a number of documentaries and series for British television, cover swiftly but with commendable balance the genesis of the conflict in the years following WWII and the often labyrinthine way in which the constant maneuvering between the superpowers reshaped the world. There are chapters on the Berlin Airlift, on the Korean War, on the early scramble to develop nuclear weapons, and on the fears leading to the creation of the Berlin Wall. While the emphasis throughout is on large-scale events, the authors take some lively detours to consider how the Cold War affected art, literature, and popular culture, as well as the cinema. There are particularly clear presentations of the evolution of nuclear strategy and on the various surrogate wars (in Guatemala, Cuba, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, among others). Those requiring a particularly deep account of Cold War diplomacy and national strategy should probably look elsewhere. But those requiring an accessible survey of the causes and effects of the Cold War need search no further.

Booklist Review

Libraries that see heavy demand for tie-in volumes when PBS and BBC historical documentaries hit the air should expect interest in this lavishly illustrated history of the cold war, which accompanies a 24-episode series that CNN will broadcast this fall. The British producers are credited as the book's authors; they acknowledge the aid of "an international panel of distinguished historians." The text incorporates some recent scholarship based on newly available Soviet and U.S. documents; it opens with a description of the U.S.S.R.'s history from 1917 to 1945, then traces the sources and consequences of East-West confrontation from the late 1940s through the fall of the Berlin Wall. The hundreds of photos and other illustrations will bring back vivid memories for those who lived through those decades, but the volume may be most valuable for readers too young to remember armed struggles in Berlin, Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam or catchphrases like Iron Curtain, de tente, and mutually assured destruction. --Mary Carroll