The Cold War: A History

by Martin Walker

"The history of the Cold War has been the history of the world since 1954."

So begins The Cold War: A History , a wide-ranging narrative by award-winning political commentator Martin Walker, which was one of the first major studies of its kind.

Now that it's over, it's crucial to our future to understand how the Cold War has shaped us and, especially, to recognize it as the economic and political dynamic that determined the structure of today's global economy.

From the origins of the Marshall Plan, which revived Europe after World War II, and the strategic decision to rebuild a defeated Japan into a bulwark against China, to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, this authoritative work reveals how the West was built into an economic alliance that overpowered the Soviet economy while also unleashing global economic forces that today challenge the traditional nation-state.

The Cold War was more of a global conflict than was either of this century's two major wars; far more than a confrontation between states or even empires, it was, as Martin Walker puts it, "a total war between economic and social systems, an industrial test to destruction."

Walker reminds us how easy it is to forget that there were many occasions in the late 1940s in which victory seemed far from assured, and that this uncertainty lent a particular urgency to the efforts of postwar Western leaders. The West continued to be alarmed by the prospect of defeat right up to the Soviet empire's last breath. At the end of the 1940s the fear was generated by communist expansion into Eastern Europe and China; in the 1960s by the prospect of defeat in Vietnam. In the 1970s the failure of détente and the West's economic crisis brought a new generation of dedicated anti-Communists to prominence. For more than forty years, as this detailed analysis makes clear, the outcome of the Cold War was in doubt.

We also come to understand how the arms race caused new alignments and shifts in domestic power. As the United States became the national security state, California, which had a population of five million at the start of the Cold War, grew to thirty million and, by the 1980s provided one in every ten members of Congress and two presidents.

Using newly opened Kremlin archives and his own experiences in the field, Martin Walker has written a brilliant analysis of the conflict that has shaped the contemporary world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, World History, American History, Military History, School

401 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Martin Walker is the U.S. bureau chief for The Guardian (London), a regular commentator for CNN, and a columnist for newspapers in the United States, Europe, and Moscow. A published novelist and poet, he lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, the novelist Julia Watson, and their two daughters.

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, fascinating, and educational read for anyone interested in recent history and the Cold War. I knew the broad outlines of much of this, but learned copious amounts of details and some large stuff I didn't know either. Got my Russian leaders straightened out in my head in time and personality/accomplishments. The perspective is very fair. The author points out when the Soviet Union and the US were tunnel-visioned and accomplished the opposite of what they intended through their policy, but there does not appear to be an agenda beyond explaining the causes, events, and tensions of the Cold War. The Soviets had some understandable fears despite their tyrannical regime, and the US made mistakes too. Too much support for tyrants who didn't happen to be aligned with the Soviet Union.

It is cool when the author, who was a reporter, quotes leaders or events in the eighties, and the footnote explains the author was there having private conversations with these famous people or at big events.

I now know why tensions were ratcheted up again in the early-mid-eighties when I remember nuclear bomb drills in school. This will educate you so much. I think my Goodreads friends could actually enjoy this one since we lived through the last decade of this.

[Nikky Southerland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1995, The Cold War provides a good overhead view of the general political causes of the Cold War before outlining the political, economic, and military progression of the two great foes. Only 360 pages, it's a brief journey through 50 tumultuous and tense years, but works well to introduce and weave together various threads of the conflict into some sort of cohesive narrative.

[John Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall is a very good informal book and I can see why the people that I'm familiar with had it. Especially when they're into the public administration arena. This is good for those who like to understand how not only policies have made their way up from the first World War until the 1990s when this book was made but also for you to get a general understanding of our world conflicts, what made these conflicts, how they progressed and how they even egressed. The author goes into even trade imports with exports history, as well as economic and political science history, by each generation at a time - so it's easier for you to follow the chain of events and see the domino effect of cause and effect in policy implementation on both sides of the Cold War. Favorite parts:

Nixon's inference on what would happen after 1991. As well as Keynes output on policy preparing for the early version of the war. As much as he shows a brief elaboration on how communism slides into only economic focuses and economic war and on the social sciences of the people of both Nations during the Clinton administration - it makes you wonder if communism never went away entirely especially with the things that are going on around you almost (as if the education system that furnishes the author's material is trying to indoctrinate you into thinking that communism no longer exist in a focus from weapons back in the early stages before detente and now it is more economic only as if the overall general education system is hiding something.)

Another good pro in this material is not only making you think what happened to communism versus it being hush hush with a focus on economy and not so much weapons anymore or the evils of communism the Marxist ideal - but also that the conversations between both world leaders in each generation, the ungrateful attitude of our allies for American support in not only security but economic output, what happened to the currencies, but more importantly how out losses and how our kindness as a NATO Ally, NAFTA supporter, and Grand maker of the Marshall Plan has been taken for granted by our allies. You can clearly see by his history lecture how Japan, Germany, France, and Britain had all benefited from the Marshall Plan but also how the Middle Eastern culture became a thriving culture with the France loss in Suez and American loss in Vietnam. He also briefly touches on the common scandals of the time from McCarthy, Watergate, and the Iran Contra Scandal. But my most favorite part of the literature is how he shows how Stalin killed more citizens than Hitler with a total of 60 million between losses in Leningrad, Stalingrad and starvation of his own citizens through low wages.

The only cons that I have with this is some of the figures within the Russian Soviet empire were only supremacist while others were Jewish before the emigration. The only other con with this material is the illusion of socialism and communism being tied together - and even some of the world leaders indicate that socialism turns to communism and that's not necessarily true.

The history from the '40s to the '90s will even make you critically think about why our leaders like Donald Trump wanted to withdraw from the NATO alliance and the NAFTA alliance considering that we contributed to the former axis powers superiority and financial success more than our own.

Especially when we need boots on the ground from them they're nowhere around when we're fighting Israel's wars. You can clearly show how even Ronald Reagan broke the Congress's authority to sell the Iranians the weapons that they needed to defeat the Nicaraguans - and in current events this is the thanks we get. He elaborates on what happened when Iran was an ally and the Shah went to an exile, he shows the fall of the Soviet Union, the structure of the Berlin wall and its decomposition, and explained how a technology and the benefits of exports and imports help define the cultures worldwide to what they are today, and he also touches on the evacuation of the US embassy in Beirut Lebanon, and the special relationship on the Horn of Africa to the Middle East's expanse. Lastly, Big Stick Diplomacy on how this side of the hemisphere relationship in exchanges was interchangeable with the French and the British colonial empire as well as the empire of our own.

[Eric Gilliland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1995, The Cold War: History by Martin Walker, veteran journalist for the Guardian and many other outlets, wrote a one-volume history of the era. Written at a time when the Cold War was just starting to be thought of as history, the book offers a mostly balanced overview. Walker does an admirable job of placing five decades of history into a coherent narrative, balancing many viewpoints that went into policymaking, while providing a global perspective.
Walker is less concerned with personalities or ideology and more with economics and long-term policy outcomes. Ultimately, the Cold War was a matter of which economy performed better:

The West prevailed because its economy proved able to supply guns as well as butter, aircraft carriers and private cars, rockets as well as foreign holidays for an ever-increasing proportion of taxpayers (1-2)

A "synergy" between free enterprise and state investment in the West proved an essential in spurring economic growth and innovation, everything from massive investments in higher education after Sputnik to the construction of the Interstate highway system benefitted national security and long-term prosperity. Fostering the trading blocs of Western Europe and Japan also brought long-term dividends. The irony of Germany and Japan being the Axis Powers who waged the Second World War ended up being close Allies of the West speaks to the many contradictions and illusions of the post-war world.

An insight I gained from the book was how our perception of reality, especially when caught in the daily grind of crisis and response, can mislead anyone into short-sighted decisions. While I have little background in theory when it comes to international relations, knowing the interests and fears of the other side, and being realistic about your own objectives are critical while navigating crisis. Policies and decisions based on fear and paranoia can lead to extreme and even fatal miscalculations. Walker tracks how each side learned to coexist in the distrustful climate where disaster always loomed.

At the Yalta Conference in February of 1945, arguably the first superpower summit, each side had their own ideas about the post-war world. The United States, under the idealism of FDR, wanted to foster democracy and ensure self-determination, guided by the United Nations. The Soviets wanted long-term security above all else after four years of bearing the brunt of defeating Germany. Allowing the Soviets satellite states in Eastern Europe was anathema to the Americans who worried the Soviets might conquer all of Europe. The clash in objectives and ideologies between the two superpowers inevitably led to conflict.

Anti-communists in the West were convinced the Soviets were bent on world domination, while the Soviet leadership believed the West were imperialists scheming to enforce capitalism on the world. With each side believing the other wants world domination, conflict appears inevitable, and yet something else happened, in time the two sides established rules of conduct. History bears out the truth of both projections, the Soviets did force totalitarianism on Eastern Europe, while the United States often fostered authoritarian regimes under the guise of anti-communism.

Nuclear weapons were crucial in the calculus of every crisis. Truman's decision to use atomic weapons against Japan ended the war but also moved the world into a new stage of existential crisis, the next conflict would far worse. During the brief window when America had a monopoly on atomic weapons, it pursued a policy of secrecy and leverage. Once the Soviets had their own arsenal, each side could destroy each other many times over, crisis management became a means of survival. In the many nuclear clashes of the 1950s, culminating with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962, it was essential for each side to know what they were and were not willing to concede, added with the underlying assurance neither side desired a nuclear exchange.

The second half of the book views the latter decades of the Cold War as both superpowers discovered the limits of their power, whether it came to leveraging Allies or Quixotic attempts to achieve military superiority through fantastical technology. The age of detente which lasted through the 1970s, saw many changes, most of them positive. Both sides talked with regular frequency, engaging in arms control talks and cultural exchanges. European nations were starting to look beyond the trappings of the Cold War, whether it was East and West Germany moving towards unification, the French leading the way in creating the European Union. China began to engage, and Japan's economic achievements were the envy of the world.

Geopolitical and domestic politics led to new frictions between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the 1980s, as the scramble for oil and markets and heightened rhetoric threatened to rip apart the fragile peace. Yet there were signs the Soviet system was in decay, while Reagan's high defense spending led to deficits for the American economy. As Walker suggests, it might be something close to a miracle, the pressures on both nations during the late stages of the Cold War never boiled over. Reagan and Gorbachev both dismissed the hardliners in their midst and allowed the nuclear terror to dissipate - for a brief time anyway. The fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet served as more symbolic rather than concrete signs the travails of the Cold War were of the past; it was more of a respite and hardly an "end to history."

Walker packs his narrative with economic data, charting the long-term and short-term consequences of policy decisions made by all the players. Government involvement in everyday life, whether in the form of defense, education, or social services, maintained a cohesion towards social democracy, especially in Western Europe, while America began to scale back the welfare state and increasingly resort to military intervention. Ultimately end of the Cold War led to a new litany of complex problems which left many nostalgic for the old days of Checkpoint Charlie and fallout shelters.

Although written within the fragile euphoria of the 1990s while not having access to the archives which have opened since, Walker raises perceptive questions and approaches old questions from fresh angles.



Walker, Martin, The Cold War: A History. New York: Holt, 1995.

[Dave Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martin Walker wrote a very comprehensive look at the Cold Was with his book The Cold War: A History. Even though his book was published in 1993 I can't think of a more important time as now to read his book.
Mistakes and missed opportunities were done by both sides of the conflict which now leads us to current events we are seeing now across the geopolitical spectrum.
I highly recommended Mr. Walker's book.

[Ferris Mx · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful assessment of some of the undercurrents of the cold war (largely economic, unsurprising since the writer is an economist). Because neither side trusted the other, many opportunities for de-escalation were lost. The book is very evenhanded in pointing out how both sides contributed to this conflict.

[Sachit Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

To start, I must state that I am a history geek and this book taught me a lot of things. I would recommend it for anyone interested in recent history and the Cold War. The perspective of this book is very fair. The author points out when the Soviet Union and the US were tunnel-visioned and achieved the opposite of what they intended through their policy, Overall, a nice, engaging read.

[Noah Champagne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read, I knew bits and pieces of this story but was nice to have it all put together for me. The writing was a bit dense and dry though

[luana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um ponto de vista geopolítico muito necessário.

[Nick Pappas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some might call this revisionist history, but I enjoyed it for the way it reframed the Cold War and challenged the conventional narrative

[Peter Tutak · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive overview of the geo-political and economic landscape that evolved between the US and Soviet Union in the aftermath of WWII, resulting in the world as we (on both sides) knew it, as children and adults back then. The book covers the period from the 1945 Yalta Conference, to the perestroika policy of Mikhail Gorbachev, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Enough detail to make it more than a cursory read, and keep the interest of the history buff, or those, like me, who want to delve into 'just why' the world was as it was during my formative years as a child in the 1950s and 1960s. It could serve as a text book for a junior college semester course on the period. Written in a 'matter-of-fact', but not overtly dry manner, the author illuminates each side as antagonistic with respect to the other, and makes it a point to also discuss the impact contributed by continental European politics of the era, especially as the economic growth and power of Europe became a critical factor in US-Soviet economic policies toward each other. An enjoyable and informative read. I didn't 'tear through it', but it held my interest from cover to cover.

[Eilidh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Walker’s book excellent, enjoyable and an extremely useful tool in my studies of the Cold War. Walker has successfully achieved a book that has the ability to bring the history to a readable level, that is accessible to everyone - anyone could pick the book up and learn about what happened.

It isn’t the most analytical commentary, but rather simply explains the “what happened” instead of “why it happened”, although Walker did attempt at various points to explain some whys. It is definitely a brief and concise outline of the historical event, which I found to be on the whole as objective as it could be.

So if you’re solely interested in learning what the Cold War was about, Walker’s The Cold War is by far one of the most easiest and simplified versions available to readers, that will be enough of an introduction to the subject area. Thoroughly recommend it!

[Dennis Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting overview of the Cold War. I did not know much about the Cold War, because I wasn't old enough to experience it, and it doesn't get as much history coverage as the "real" wars. This was a great book from that perspective, as it briefly summarizes the different events from beginning to end. One negative being that sometimes I was very interested in certain events such as the end of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis and the descriptions are brief. The other negative is that this was published in 94 and it doesn't go into the economic decline of Russia in the post Soviet era, but leaves the reader on a "what will happen" ending that is somewhat irrelevant 20 years later.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was another pretty good history book for me. It was a condensed review of the Cold War covering not only military but political, economic and social events that had some sore of impact either on the the Cold War or because of it. I only have two issues with the book in that I think the author rushed it in order to be one of the first books out on the Cold War and that at the end he has a rather scathing review of the Reagan-Thatcher era and capitalism which I think was a little over the top. Otherwise a pretty good book for anyone interested in the Cold War but don't want to be weighed down reading some of the other, more in-depth books on the subject.

[Dawn Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative all points of current history covered. Each decade of time represented with lots of views, outlooks and insights. So well written and documented you remember things forgotten, learn information new to you, and see the differences today.

[Grindy Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent overview of th Cold War, hitting all the highlights (though Nixon's relation making with China is barely mentioned). There are lots of surveys of the Cold War out there, and there isn't much here to distinguish it from the other works.

[Wolfgang · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clearly focused history of the confrontation. The main focus is on the West, probably nothing else could be expected from a book written as early after the end of the Eastern block. For my taste it emphasises the symmetry between East and West too much, but apart from that a good read.

[catechism · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for grad school, ages ago. Had a lot of good information, but I actually think you could get almost all of it coherently and pretty comprehensively from just reading the afterword.

[Kiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting and easy to read account of the Cold War which is still relevant today.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent reading.

[Hugh Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Total cold war in one book. Fantastic, direct, powerful.

[Ahmed Albabtain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative, however i found the writing style very dry.

[Iggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chronological overview of the Cold War, with some analysis.