The 1950s opened with the world teetering on the edge
of a nuclear holocaust. The Soviet Union had detonated
its first nuclear device in 1949, and the two blocs—capi-
talist and socialist—viewed each other across an ideological
divide that grew increasingly bitter with each
passing year. Yet as the decade drew to a close, a measure
of sanity crept into the Cold War, and the leaders of the
major world powers began to seek ways to coexist in an
increasingly unstable world (see Map 7.2).
World History
