In its prime the Cold War constituted an international system, in the sense that the world's leading powers all based their foreign policies on some relationship to it. The Cold War was a confrontation between capitalism and socialism that peaked in the years between 19, although its origins go much further back in time and its consequences can still be felt today. Even in tranquil Norway the world was divided, and it is sometimes hard to remember how intense its conflicts were. My country bordered the Soviet Union in the north and at the slightest increase in the temperature of international affairs, tension also mounted along the mostly frozen river where the frontier was set. In a place that had been occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, the latter was a serious matter: It implied betrayal, in a region that was wary of treason. It spread fear and not a little confusion: Could you be certain that the nuclear catastrophe would not happen tomorrow? What could set it off? The Communists-a tiny group in my hometown-suffered the suspicions of others for having different points of view, and perhaps-it was said often enough-different loyalties, not to our own country, but to the Soviet Union. It split families, towns, regions, and countries. When I was a boy in Norway during the 1960s, the world I grew up in was delimited by the Cold War. Stunning in its breadth and revelatory in its perspective, this book expands our understanding of the Cold War both geographically and chronologically and offers an engaging new history of how today's world was created. Its ideologies influence China, Russia, and the United States Iraq and Afghanistan have been destroyed by the faith in purely military solutions that emerged from the Cold War. Today, many regions are plagued with environmental threats, social divides, and ethnic conflicts that stem from this era. And these choices continue to define economies and regimes across the world. The Cold War may have begun on the perimeters of Europe, but it had its deepest reverberations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where nearly every community had to choose sides.

From Soweto to Hollywood, Hanoi, and Hamburg, young men and women felt they were fighting for the future of the world. In The Cold War, Westad offers a new perspective on a century when great power rivalry and ideological battle transformed every corner of our globe.

But in this major new work, Bancroft Prize-winning scholar Odd Arne Westad argues that the Cold War must be understood as a global ideological confrontation, with early roots in the Industrial Revolution and ongoing repercussions around the world. We tend to think of the Cold War as a bounded conflict: a clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, born out of the ashes of World War II and coming to a dramatic end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The definitive history of the Cold War and its impact around the world

The Global Cold War by Odd Arne Westad