COLD WAR

Volume I of The Cambridge History of the Cold War examines the origins and early years of the conflict. In the first comprehensive historical reexamination of the period, a team of leading scholars shows how the Cold War evolved from the geopolitical, ideological, economic, and sociopolitical environment of the two world wars and the 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 deal with the most influential statesmen of the era and address issues that mattered most 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.

Melvyn P. Leffler is Edward Stettinius Professor of American History at the Department of History, University of Virginia. His previous publications include To Lead the World: American Strategy After the Bush Doctrine (2008, as co-editor), For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (2007, winner of the AHA George Louis Beer Prize), and A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War (1992, winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Robert Ferrell Prize, and the Herbert Hoover Book Award).

Odd Arne Westad is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His previous publications include The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (2005, winner of the Bancroft Prize, the APSA New Political Science Prize, and the Akira Iriye Award), Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 (2003), and Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1963 (1999, as editor).