Odd Arne Westad

From a Bancroft Prize-winning scholar, a new global history of the Cold War and its ongoing impact around the world In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe. We traditionally think of the Cold War as a post-World War II diplomatic and military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Westad argues that the conflict must be understood as a global ideological confrontation with roots in the industrial revolution and with continuing implications for the world today. The Cold War may have begun on the perimeters of Europe but it had its largest impacts in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Expanding our understanding of the Cold War both geographically and chronologically, Westad offers the definitive new history of an ongoing battle.

A World History

The Cold War

J M Roberts

This is a completely new and updated edition of J. M. Roberts and Odd Arne Westad's widely acclaimed, landmark bestseller The Penguin History of the World. For generations of readers The Penguin History of the World has been one of the great cultural experiences - the entire story of human endeavour laid out in all its grandeur and folly, drama and pain in a single authoritative book. Now, for the first time, it has been completely overhauled for its 6th edition - not just bringing it up to date, but revising it throughout in the light of new research and discoveries, such as the revolution in our understanding of many civilizations in the Ancient World. The closing sections of the book reflect what now seems to be the inexorable rise of Asia and the increasingly troubled situation in the West. About the authors: J.M. Roberts, CBE, published The Penguin History of the World in 1976 to immediate acclaim. His other major books include The Paris Commune from the Right, The Triumph of the West (which was also a successful television series), The Penguin History of Europe and The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century. He died in 2003. Odd Arne Westad, FBA, is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. He has published fifteen books on modern and contemporary international history, among them The Global Cold War, which won the Bancroft Prize, and Decisive Encounters, a standard history of the Chinese civil war. He also served as general co-editor of the Cambridge History of the Cold War. Reviews 'A work of outstanding breadth of scholarship and penetrating judgements. There is nothing better of its kind' Jonathan Sumption, Sunday Telegraph 'A stupendous achievement' A.J.P. Taylor 'A brilliant book ... the most outstanding history of the world yet written' J.H. Plumb

6th edition

The Penguin History of the World

Cold War

John Morris Roberts

The New Penguin History of the World

Jussi M. Hanhimäki

The Cold War contains a selection of official and unofficial documents which provide a truly multi-faceted account of the entire Cold War era. The experiences of the East Berlin housewife are placed alongside those of the South African student; the participation of political leaders from Europe and the Third World stand juxtaposed. Not only does this book put a human face on the conflict, but it draws emphasis to the variety of ways in which this conflict was experienced. The final selection of documents illustrates the global impact of the Cold War to the present day, and establishes links between the Cold War and the events of 11th September 2001.

A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts

The Cold War shaped the world we live in today - its politics, economics, and military affairs. This book shows how the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created the foundations for most of the key conflicts we see today, including the War on Terror. It focuses on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - gave rise to resentments and resistance that in the end helped topple one superpower and still seriously challenge the other. Ranging from China to Indonesia, Iran, Ethiopia, Angola, Cuba, and Nicaragua, it provides a truly global perspective on the Cold War. And by exploring both the development of interventionist ideologies and the revolutionary movements that confronted interventions, the book links the past with the present in ways that no other major work on the Cold War era has succeeded in doing.

Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times

The Global Cold War

Melvyn P. Leffler

Volume III of The Cambridge History of the Cold War examines the evolution of the conflict from the Helsinki Conference of 1975 until the Soviet collapse in 1991. A team of leading scholars analyzes the economic, social, cultural, religious, technological and geopolitical factors that ended the Cold War and discusses the personalities and policies of key leaders such as Brezhnev, Reagan, Gorbachev, Thatcher, Kohl and Deng Xiaoping. The authors show how events throughout the world shaped the evolution of Soviet-American relations and they explore the legacies of the superpower confrontation in a comparative and transnational perspective. Individual chapters examine how the Cold War affected and was affected by environmental issues, economic trends, patterns of consumption, human rights and non-governmental organizations. The volume represents the new international history at its best, emphasizing broad social, economic, demographic and strategic developments while keeping politics and human agency in focus.

The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Volume 3, Endings

Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944-1946

Cold War and Revolution

Over the past 250 years of momentous change and dramatic upheaval, China has proved itself to be a Restless Empire. Tracing China's course from the eighteenth-century Qing Dynasty to today's People's Republic, Restless Empire shows how the country's worldview has evolved. It explains how Chinese attitudes have been determined by both receptiveness and resistance to outside influence and presents the preoccupations that have set its foreign-relations agenda. Within two decades China is likely to depose the United States as the world's largest economy. By then the country expects to have eradicated poverty among its population of more than one and a half billion, and established itself as the world's technological powerhouse. Meanwhile, some - especially its neighbours - are afraid that China will strengthen its military might in order to bend others to its will. A new form of Chinese nationalism is rising. Many Chinese are angry about perceived past injustices and fear a loss of identity to commercial forces and foreign influences. So, will China's attraction to world society dwindle, or will China continue to engage? Will it attempt to recreate a Sino-centric international order in Eastern Asia, or pursue a more harmonious diplomatic route? And can it overcome its lack of democracy and transparency, or are these characteristics hard-wired into the Chinese system? Whatever the case, we ignore China's international history at our peril. Restless Empire is a magisterial and indispensible history of the most important state in world affairs today. WINNER OF THE 2013 ASIA SOCIETY BERNARD SCHWARTZ BOOK AWARD

China and the World Since 1750

Restless Empire

The definitive history of the Cold War and its impact 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. 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. 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. From Soweto to Hollywood, Hanoi, and Hamburg, young men and women felt they were fighting for the future of 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. And these choices continue to define economies and regimes across the world. Today, many regions are plagued with environmental threats, social divides, and ethnic conflicts that stem from this era. 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. 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.

From an award-winning historian, a concise overview of the deep and longstanding ties between China and the Koreas, providing an essential foundation for understanding East Asian geopolitics today. In a concise, trenchant overview, Odd Arne Westad explores the cultural and political relationship between China and the Koreas over the past 600 years. Koreans long saw China as a mentor. The first form of written Korean employed Chinese characters and remained in administrative use until the twentieth century. Confucianism, especially Neo-Confucian reasoning about the state and its role in promoting a virtuous society, was central to the construction of the Korean government in the fourteenth century. These shared Confucian principles were expressed in fraternal terms, with China the older brother and Korea the younger. During the Ming Dynasty, mentor became protector, as Korea declared itself a vassal of China in hopes of escaping ruin at the hands of the Mongols. But the friendship eventually frayed with the encroachment of Western powers in the nineteenth century. Koreans began to reassess their position, especially as Qing China seemed no longer willing or able to stand up for Korea against either the Western powers or the rising military threat from Meiji Japan. The Sino-Korean relationship underwent further change over the next century as imperialism, nationalism, revolution, and war refashioned states and peoples throughout Asia. Westad describes the disastrous impact of the Korean War on international relations in the region and considers Sino-Korean interactions today, especially the thorny question of the reunification of the Korean peninsula. Illuminating both the ties and the tensions that have characterized the China-Korea relationship, Empire and Righteous Nation provides a valuable foundation for understanding a critical geopolitical dynamic.

Empire and Righteous Nation

Priscilla Roberts

This book explores the forces that impelled China, the world’s largest socialist state, to make massive changes in its domestic and international stance during the long 1970s. Fourteen distinguished scholars investigate the special, perhaps crucial part that the territory of Hong Kong played in encouraging and midwifing China’s relationship with the non-Communist world. The Long 1970s were the years when China moved dramatically and decisively toward much closer relations with the non-Communist world. In the late 1970s, China also embarked on major economic reforms, designed to win it great power status by the early twenty-first centuries. The volume addresses the long-term implications of China’s choices for the outcome of the Cold War and in steering the global international outlook toward free-market capitalism. Decisions made in the 1970s are key to understanding the nature and policies of the Chinese state today and the worldview of current Chinese leaders.

China, Hong Kong, and the Long 1970s: Global Perspectives

This volume examines the origins and early years of the Cold War. In the first comprehensive reexamination of the period, a team of leading scholars shows how the conflict evolved from the geopolitical, ideological, economic and sociopolitical environments of the two world wars and interwar period, and discusses how markets, ideas and cultural interactions affected political discourse, diplomacy and strategy after World War II. The chapters focus not only on the United States and the Soviet Union, but also on critical regions such as Europe, the Balkans and East Asia. The authors consider the most influential statesmen of the era and address issues that mattered to people around the globe: food, nutrition and resource allocation; ethnicity, race and religion; science and technology; national autonomy, self-determination and sovereignty. In so doing, they illuminate how people worldwide shaped the evolution of the increasingly bipolar conflict and, in turn, were ensnared by it.

The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Volume 1, Origins

This book examines China's role in the world in recent centuries to demonstrate how its past is shaping its future, explaining how Western influences have reinforced traditional Chinese mores while establishing potential partnerships.

"The fifth revised edition was published in Great Britain as The new Penguin history of the world by Penguin Press/Allen Lane, 2012"--Title page verso.

The History of the World

John-M Roberts

Raconter et décrypter l'histoire du monde, tel est le pari de cette oeuvre majeure, divisée en trois volumes. Ce premier tome, qui couvre la période allant de 7 000 av. J.-C. à 500 ap. J.-C., s'ouvre sur la préhistoire pour se conclure lorsque chutent les Empires romain et Han. Les auteurs s'emploient ainsi à expliquer les cultures mésopotamiennes (Sumer, Babylone), égyptienne et méditerranéennes (Mycènes, Grèce, Rome), mais aussi la Chine et l'Inde classiques. Se faisant, ils éclairent la naissance de ces grands fondements culturels que sont les religions (judaïsme, bouddhisme, confucianisme, christianisme et hindouisme), l'apparition de pratiques et techniques essentielles (écritures, rites funéraires) et de formes politiques primordiales (monarchie, théocratie, démocratie). Au-delà des immenses qualités d'écriture et de synthèse des auteurs, qui rendent la lecture particulièrement stimulante, la force du propos tient à leur capacité à lier les cultures et les espaces entre eux. Roberts et Westad soulignent, par exemple, ce que la Grèce doit à la Phénicie, expliquent comment le bouddhisme, né en Inde, va s'épanouir en Chine, ou pourquoi les migrations des peuples germains ont eu une incidence sur les royaumes du nord de l'Afrique. A l'heure où les enjeux culturels, économiques, politiques, démographiques et environnementaux se structurent à l'échelle mondiale, ce livre, par sa hauteur de vue, son style et sa pertinence, donne les clés de compréhension de la passionnante histoire de l'humanité.

Volume 1, Les âges anciens

Histoire du monde

Since the cold war ended, it has become an international field of study, with new material from China, the former Soviet Union and Europe. This volume takes stock of where these new materials have taken us in our understanding of what the cold war was about and how we should study it.

Approaches, Interpretations, Theory

Reviewing the Cold War

This volume examines the origins and early years of the Cold War in the first comprehensive historical reexamination of the period. A team of leading scholars shows how the conflict evolved from the geopolitical, ideological, economic and sociopolitical environments of the two world wars and interwar period.

Odd Arne Westad

About

Books

Join the club