Do you know why the world came to the brink of nuclear war?
Two words – ‘Cold War’.
The Cold War was international affairs for the second half of the 20th Century. Nuclear weapons testing, civil wars in all corners of the globe, and the race for economic dominance were all key spheres of the Cold War, although they were just a few elements of a very complex global puzzle. More so than the great battles between Carthage and Rome in ancient times or the Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War defined our world. But, there was one key difference between the Cold War and earlier major wars. Due to advances in technology and communications, the Cold War touched most countries on earth.
This introduction to the early years of the Cold War is the debut book from George Levrier-Jones. He tells the story of the great clash between the Communist Soviet Union and the capitalist USA. George’s fast-paced, concise writing style will allow you to quickly learn about the key events of the Cold War, and to find out how the world came to the cusp of nuclear annihilation.
The topics in the book include:
- The origins of the Cold War and why the USSR and USA emerged from World War 2 as super-powers
- How the Soviet Union and the USA quickly went from wartime allies
- to enemies
- The key changes in post-war Europe
- The Berlin blockade and the building of the Berlin Wall
- Events in East Asia – the Chinese Civil War and why the Korean War became integral to the Cold War
- Nuclear weapons development
- Uprisings and revolutions in Eastern Europe in the 1950s, including the Hungarian revolution
- The most dangerous event of the early Cold War years, the Cuban Missile Crisis
The approximately 80-page book is the perfect complement to the Cold War History audio series that is available as part of the ‘History in 28-minutes’ podcasts.