The Cold War

With the defeat of the Axis powers and the end of World War II, the deep-seated differences—ideological, political, socioeconomic, geostrategic—between the members of the triumphant coalition began to become evident. Under the real threat of a possible nuclear confrontation, two clearly differentiated models of society—the Western capitalist, led by the United States, and the Soviet communist, championed by the Soviet Union—tried to impose their criteria in a world subjected to an intense process of change after the bloody world conflagration and the birth of decolonization in the countries of the so-called Third World. In this volume, Robert McMahon provides a detailed synthesis of this period, showing not only the evolution of the conflict itself, with its different periods and crises (Berlin, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam...), but also addressing the repercussions and fissures within each bloc, and the intimate relationship that domestic politics had on the decisions made by Americans and Soviets in the international arena.