The World of the Cold War 1945-1991

by Vladislav M. Zubok

Why did the Cold War erupt so soon after the Second World War? How did it escalate so rapidly, spanning five continents over six decades? And what led to the spectacular collapse of the Soviet Union?

In this comprehensive guide to the most widespread conflict in contemporary history, Vladislav Zubok traces the origins of the Cold War in post-war Europe, through the tumultuous decades of confrontation, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond.

With remarkable clarity and unique perspective, Zubok argues that the Cold War, often seen as an existential battle between capitalist democracy and totalitarian communism, has long been misunderstood. He challenges the popular Western narrative that economic superiority and democratic values led the USA to victory. Instead, he looks beyond the familiar images of East-West rivalry, shining a light on the impact of non-Western actors and placing the war in the context of global decolonisation, Soviet weakness and the accidents of history. Here, he interrogates what happens when stability and peace are no longer the default, when treaties are broken and when diplomacy ceases to function.

Drawing on years of research and informed by Zubok’s three decades in the USSR followed by three decades in the West, The Cold War paints a striking portrait of a world on the brink.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Politics, Audiobook, The United States Of America, International Relations

527 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 5, 2024

About the author

Vladislav M. Zubok (see also: Владислав Зубок) is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of A Failed Empire, Zhivago’s Children, and The Idea of Russia.

Reviews

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“At the end of his presidency, Eisenhower got his military bureaucracy to produce ‘the single integrated operational plan’ (STOP) for a nuclear war against the Soviet Union: 3,200 nuclear warheads would strike cities in the USSR and China in the first wave, killing up to 450 million people instantly. Even without Soviet retaliation, the radioactive fallout would circle the globe, making many Americans sick and leading to many more deaths.”

This is why I love and keep going back to Pelican editions, Zubok has written a reasoned, eloquent and highly accessible piece of work, he does a good job of broadening the scale, encompassing more of the actors and players in the scheme of things, which allows a broader and deeper context to emerge of the overall picture, which was never as straight forward as most politicians or leaders would have us believe.

“The average Polish worker got a free flat from the state for his family, with cheap electricity and gas, plumbing, and central heating.”

At the risk of stating the obvious what becomes apparent is that both sides of the Cold War were consumed by fear, paranoia and as both spent obscene amounts of money to ultimately fight against their own fears and ignorance. This toxic status quo which persisted for so long resulted in the needless impoverishment, suffering and/or deaths of hundreds of millions and in the end who did it really benefit?...

“It would take American leaders an entire decade to manage Russia’s downgrade from a nuclear superpower to a regional partner. We are still living with the consequences of the failure of this endeavour.”

[Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hopefully, someone from Pelican manages to update the title of this book, which is, in fact, The World of the Cold War, 1945-1991.

That title is meant to signal one of the distinctive "sells" of this book, which is its attention to global actors, in recognition of the major historiographic reorientation led by Odd Arne Westad, away from narrow US-Soviet accounts. The book is also sold for Zubok's unique perspective as a Russian professor of international history, who has spent equal amounts of time in Russia and the West, and has a strong appreciation of what the Cold War looked and felt like on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

These, and the excellent reviews for Zubok's last book, convinced me to buy this, and I'm happy I did so. The account is exceptionally readable. Despite its length (c. 470 pages - again, the Goodreads page is wrong on this at the time of writing), I read the book quickly. The story is compelling and pacily written. Zubok's command of a massive topic is excellent, and he's an intelligent and judicious commentator. He's unsurprisingly good at exploding the Western myth of the US having "won" the Cold War in any straightforward sense, articulating instead a version of the story that heavily foreground Gorbachev's peculiar and immensely significant role. Zubok is rather more admiring of Gorbachev than I find reasonable, but the narrative he gives of the end of the Cold War is generally solid and insightful.

The narrative through the rest of the book is similarly informed by a range of scholarship, including those revisionist and post-revisionist historians who have complicated our understanding of the key agents in the Cold War, its proper historical framing, and the respective motivations/responsibilities of the leading powers. While the inclusion of this scholarship is welcome, I did find it to be a source of some tension and frustration. Zubok's evident sympathies reside ultimately with liberal democratic capitalism, including in some of its most reactionary forms. So, while he frankly confronts the meaning of the 1973 Chile coup and the neoliberal reaction, he at other times treats the dynamism of market economics and capitalist economic supremacy as a naturalised given. Similarly, he tends to give credit to Western concerns for democracy even as he is also willing to accept some degree of hypocrisy in it and to name check specific events like the Indonesian massacre and Operation Condor.

So while Zubok permits some honest confrontation with the imperial realities of American action in the Cold War, he doesn't seem to have integrated this into a very thoroughgoing critique of capitalist power, and indeed he appears to be a champion the same system. (As an English Northerner and a Marxist, I especially hated the form of words he chose to describe Thatcher's war on the unions, eg, which he treats as sensible and necessary).

Finally and relatedly, Zubok's effort to tell a global history of the Cold War is a little half-hearted in my view. While it's nice that he gives some significant space to various European actors, to Mao, and to Third World figures like Nasser and Sadat, at the end of the day the book is mostly a history of US-Soviet policy. It doesn't capture "the view from the South" remotely adequately. To do so would have required a far greater shift out of Zubok's comfort zone, to be fair, but it would also have made the "world" referenced in the title more meaningful.

Having read it shortly after completing Katja Hoyer's Beyond the Wall, I'd especially recommend pairing these two radically different Cold War histories. Whereas Zubok is telling a massive, world-spanning story drawing almost exclusively on the archives of elite political actors, Hoyer gives a sense of social realities and lived experiences of the Cold War. I prefer Hoyer's book rather a lot, because it does a better job of accessing the contingency of Cold War history, as well as the ambivalence that many rightly feel about the collapse of Stalinist systems. Zubok's anti-Communism is, in short, rather limiting, even as the story he's telling is super interesting and he is often an effective guide to it.

For these reasons, I've rated it at 3/5, but this is an insufficient rating system that you shouldn't take too seriously. I would recommend this book, but with the caveats offered above about what it does really well, and what it ultimately doesn't offer. Above all, I'd suggest not making it the only book you read on the Cold War.

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid piece of scholarship. A diplomatic history that surpasses prior work as a result of Zuboks knowledge of the inner workings of Soviet foreign policy, neglected in prior histories, with a tendency to grind it into a crude Kremlinology. As a result we get an understanding of how the asymmetry of information and Soviet anxieties as well the USSRs relation to its client states shaped their foreign policy and decision making at key moments. Yet it’s limited as while economic and social history is not the books focus, it could have added to an understanding of the dynamics of the Cold War. Writing a history of the Cold War and not addressing the Bretton Woods System is a flaw in understanding the operations of the western bloc. The economic side when mentioned is still generally solid. It also neglects the Third World in its diplomatic narrative. This may make sense to an extent as it focuses on the key state actors and the creators of their foreign policy, however the third world was a key front of the Cold War and their omission reduces the work as a global history. A lot of its limits can come from the fact it’s not a long book (despite my long time reading it), something that Zubok acknowledges in his introduction. Still, I don’t think he needed to go into a lot more detail, rather reorient the viewpoint to include more countries outside of the two main powers, away from what he sees as the main front of the conflict in central and Eastern Europe.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid scholarship

[Curtis Stokes · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent history of the Cold War combined with heavy editorial commentary. I really liked the focus on intra-Soviet tensions and “tail wagging the dog” 3rd-party players. Readable and interesting.

[Nikólaos · Rating 5 out of 5]

V. Zubok is, above all, a man of honesty.

This book is bound to make enemies. In some ways, it steps on the toes of red-blooded orthodox historians while concurrently doing the exact same towards even the most critical of revisionists. By no means is Zubok a man of the center — he has his own personal experiences that shaped him, as he jots down quite frequently (while disappointingly curtly) towards the end of nearly each chapter. Yet, his own beliefs of what the world SHOULD look like do not take away from how the world DID (and DOES) exist.

Where Zubok excels is his painting of a geopolitical standoff that was certainly influenced by strategy and ideology, but it was also riddled with complexity and confusion. Take the Cuban Missile Crisis for instance. Was this truly a masterful diplomatic showdown? Zubok says no: in many ways, this only showcased how utterly foolish and above all, dangerous, the Cold War had become.

While Zubok stays true to his perspective of remaining locked-in on Washington and Moscow, with an occasional glance at Beijing and Berlin, he does provide helpful, albeit brief, diversions in the Third World. This book is not meant for those who truly want a deep-dive into the Vietnam Wars or the senseless conflicts that plagued Angola and Ethiopia throughout the 20th century; instead, Zubok is making a case that Washington-Moscow relations SHAPED, or at least INFLUENCED, practically every spot on the globe.

Perhaps most controversial is his conclusion, where he crafts an uncomfortable point: can Russia’s aggression today in any way be connected to its exclusion from the liberal order of the West? This is food for thought for the reader though, as Zubok has presented them enough information to form their own conclusions on this matter.

[Yukinosita Yukino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good and engaging narratives to fill in the basics of Cold War knowledge. But the author lacks a consistent method of analysis, therefore the materials feel selective and only reinforces the story he wanted to tell. He says in the conclusion that historians should “resist the temptation to over interpret and impose grand schemes in messy human affairs”. That’s a fair point, but this book could certainly benefit from much more structural analysis and not throwing everything to the contingency of top leaders.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history of the cold war, even handed and honest in the multiple interpretations of events possible, whilst giving a consistent narrative.

A really good read with the right amount of depth to be a good introduction to the events described.

I thought the "Time of X Roman God" didn't really go anywhere or add much to the analysis, but other than that a great read!

[Charlie]

Zubok is readable and accessible, but I can't help but think this one is a little lightweight.

[Daniel Gusev · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ever (I might be biased yet seldom I got that much enjoyment about the pace and riveting detail stored on the pages) providing a well-articulated background to the decisions operated on poor lopsided information in the deficit of time - those that craft policies and inform diplomacy - and populate the Cold War history archive.

Shall enter a list of the modern studies / international studies curriculum and complement numerous others on disparate periods of history - be that Kotkin’s Stalin vol 2, or Ellsberg’s books on Pentagon Papers - or that on 1983 or Radchenko’s “To Run the World” or Benn Steil’s “The Marshall Plan”.

[Austin Barselau · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The World of the Cold War, Vladislav Zubok interrogates the Cold War’s key developments and ideological struggles. A Russian-born academic and professor at the London School of Economics, Zubok brings a unique perspective shaped by his Soviet upbringing and scholarly access to both Western and Soviet archival material. He organizes the Cold War into four thematic periods, each named after a Roman deity: the “Time of Mars” (tracing the origins of the conflict in postwar Europe), the “Time of Vulcan” (marking the height of confrontation and nuclear brinkmanship), the “Time of Janus” (capturing the emergence of internal crises and disillusionment within both superpowers), and the “Time of Minerva” (representing globalization and the winding down of the Cold War). Zubok resists simplistic, one-sided narratives. Instead, he attempts a balanced interpretation that acknowledges ideological, geopolitical, and psychological dynamics on both sides of the Iron Curtain. He narrates the major international episodes with clarity, touching on everything from proxy wars and arms races to internal social transformations and leadership transitions in Washington and Moscow.

However, the work is not without its flaws. Despite Zubok’s familiarity with Soviet sources, the book leans heavily on secondary literature rather than original archival discoveries, which limits its scholarly novelty. His fourfold periodization, while conceptually ambitious, often feels strained—more symbolic than analytically useful. Moreover, the book’s reluctance to engage in deeper critical analysis or to stake out bold interpretive positions makes it read at times like a well-organized chronicle rather than a work of original historical insight. The narrative tends to recapitulate familiar events without offering new perspectives or interpretations that distinguish it from existing Cold War historiography.

In sum, The World of the Cold War is a succinct and accessible overview of the Cold War’s global arc, but it falls short of being a transformative or groundbreaking contribution to the field. While it may serve as a useful entry point for general readers, those seeking a more original or analytically rigorous history may find it lacking.

[History Today]

In Vitaly Mansky’s wistful 2020 documentary Gorbachev. Heaven, which depicts the last months of the former Soviet leader’s life, Vladimir Putin plays the role of a ghost. While Gorbachev responds to Mansky’s questions about the current Russian leader in typically evasive and capricious fashion, Putin’s image lurks constantly in the background, an almost constant fixture on television screens in Gorbachev’s house and elsewhere.

Gorbachev’s refusal to condemn Putin hid a strained relationship between the two. As political figures, they could not be more different. Perhaps more than any other historian (with the exception perhaps of his biographer, William Taubman) Vladislav Zubok has contributed to an image of Gorbachev as a hopeless idealist. In his new history of the Cold War, Zubok, working on the assumption that power corrupts, remarks that ‘it remains an enigma why it did not corrupt Gorbachev enough’. Putin, however, has been described by his former political adviser Gleb Pavlovsky as someone who sees ideology as secondary to power, who thought that the fault of the Soviet Union was trying to build a fairer society rather than ‘making more money than the capitalists’.

Despite these differences, Gorbachev and Putin’s stories are closely linked. Putin’s political life has been defined by the Cold War. His experience of the conflict’s collapse defines his worldview. As a KGB agent in Dresden, he was shocked by Moscow’s failure to prevent the collapse of the East German state. He later recalled his disbelief that Moscow was ‘silent’ in response to calls for help in the face of a growing protest movement. It is easy to read Putin’s revanchism as a direct response to the collapse of the Soviet empire, as well as Russia’s subsequent fall into chaos in the 1990s. Without Gorbachev there is no Putin.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

George Bodie is Lecturer in History at Goldsmiths, University of London.

[Marcos · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an okayish overview of the period. My main disappointment with the book (though admittedly this isn't so much the author's fault, but rather the editor's) was its length. After seeing it advertised as having 500 pages, I was expecting it to be a fairly detailed and in-depth work on the subject. However, the absurdly large font chosen by Penguin, unusual for an academic history book (and which I only discovered once I had already received my physical copy) means that in effect the book is just 180 or so pages long. As a result, its treatment of many of the pivotal events of the Cold War is extremely short and rushed: proxy conflicts and political developments outside of the two superpowers, even those as iconic as the Vietnam War or the Cuban Revolution, are usually done away with in a paragraph or two, and they are only brought up insofar as they help to explain why the USA and USSR were in a period of tensions or rapprochement at the time (this cycle of years of escalation followed by years of détente is obviously the driving focus of the book). So much for the claim, made in the synopsis, that the book "shines a light on the impact of non-Western actors and places the war in the context of global decolonization"! Its short length also causes the author to be rather sparing in its use of specific dates: it is often hard to follow the thread of the diplomatic back-and-forth when the author often omits to mention the month or even the year in which a certain diplomatic back-channel contact happened.

Overall, while it was not a bad read, part of me wishes I had chosen the better known synthesis of Odd Arne Westad instead.

[Tejas Sathian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this book after hearing Zubok on the Odd Lots podcast (with lots of enthusiasm from Joe) and I found it really enjoyable - narrating an ‘alternative’, less US-focused history of the Cold War. Unlike other contemporary history books it focused mainly on historical analysis and less on trying to draw grand conclusions to explain analogous conflicts (e.g. the US-China Cold War 2). The central thesis is roughly: the Cold War was fundamentally a struggle over Europe (rather than an ideological conflict); it was situated within a global context (detente between superpowers, multiple fronts across Europe/Asia, decolonization and battles for Third World); it ended due to a new revolution in the USSR rather than the common narrative of economic victory for the US (Gorbachev entered and mismanaged reforms and regional rebellions and allowed the Cold War to end on US terms). Key lessons for the contemporary world: US-China economic integration without shared values/broader strategic framework is risky; Russia becoming a rogue state after Yeltsin’s failures threatened European stability; NATO makes security dilemmas inevitable.

[Tyler Hart-Loi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book talking about the history of the Cold War. Really wraps around post WW2 negotiations and fills the gaps in knowledge I had from 1944 to today in terms of relations between Russia, Soviet Union, USA, China and the Middle East. A lot goes into the evolution of these societies and the author did a good job with a heavy focus on Soviet Union (led by Russian Kremlin) and Western World (led by USA/DC).

Push and pull over East/West Germany and previous Prussia as well as the smaller countries in Eastern Europe such as as Hungary, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, the Baltics, Romania, and other “eastern bloc” sphere.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

On one shoulder was perched the Owl of Minerva. On the other, the Owl of Zubokia.

Witty and unafraid to dismantle Cold War pieties. Zubok enjoys poking big holes in our favorite mythologies.

We got the Cold War wrong. But how could we have gotten it right? I'll speak to the author soon.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting history of the cold war from a Russian perspective. The author grew up in Russia them lived in the US for decades. Very readable - doesn't get bogged down in detail.

[Paul Curry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of a huge subject, probably not worth the purchase if you’re familiar with the Cold War already.

[Andrew Farris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basic narrative intro to the subject matter, is fairly good, if not particularly insightful or interestingly written

[Henry Rorke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well written story about the Cold War

[Joe Baird · Rating 4 out of 5]

potentially too surface level at times but great for an overview

[Cameron Hook · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely overlook, especially liked the balanced and fair perspective

[Oliver Rácz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Newly published work by V. Zubok, The World of the Cold War: 1945–1991, provides a refreshing account of several well-known Cold War issues. Its uniqueness does not lie in the topic itself, since there are other highly praised overviews of the Cold War, but in its focus on the Soviet perspective. The usual narrative explains the Cold War as an ideological conflict between capitalism and communism, or as a conflict between the two superpowers, the United States and the USSR.
Zubok’s coverage of the broader context emphasizes four Soviet leaders who shaped the character of the Cold War and were the most influential in the development of Soviet foreign policy: Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev. The titles of the four main chapters, drawn from Roman mythology, serve as metaphors to illustrate the nature of particular Cold War episodes. As a reader, I found this analogy quite innovative. One of the book’s highlights is definitely its treatment of the Détente era.

Although I enjoyed reading this book, there are several issues that prevent me from giving it a five-star rating. First, I am not sure who the intended audience is. It requires an observant reader to fully appreciate all of the author’s conclusions on widely known topics. At times, the writing style felt like reading a historical essay. The author was not able to explore several themes or important events in depth, nor was that the book’s intention. In this sense, I would probably not recommend it as a first step toward learning about Cold War history. In my opinion, the book’s value lies in its new approach and interpretation of familiar facts.

Another issue is the reliance on secondary sources in most cases. I found this somewhat confusing, since I am aware of the author’s erudition and familiarity with Soviet archival materials, which he demonstrated greatly in his previous works. Nevertheless, the book is certainly well-researched. It was also distracting to read multiple references such as “one historian said…” or “according to one historian…” throughout the paragraphs. In my opinion, it would have been more helpful to cite the references directly. Or was this simply the publisher’s intention? Which brings me to my final point regarding the book’s format: the font size is far too large, resulting in 520 pages that could easily have been condensed to 300–350 pages.

Despite all the issues mentioned above, I would definitely recommend Zubok’s engaging book for its narrative strength and its ability to cast familiar Cold War facts in a new perspective.

[Zeynep Demir · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent narrative of the Cold War.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The absolute necessary element of this book is the decentering of the Cold War from just NATO versus the USSR + China to the lesser covered political interventions throughout Africa and South America. A lot of the material was new to me and really did leave me better informed. That being said I wish it was longer. Zubok on this subject deserves 1000 pages, and without it the book does feel somewhat sparse. Great read if you want a less conventional telling of this history.

[Leon Spence · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating history of the Cold War written from a Soviet / Russian perspective.

Obviously any historical book is written with a degree of author bias but you certainly come out of this one with a greater appreciation of both Nixon and Gorbachev, and a greater understanding that things could have been so very different (and much, much worse).

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best history book I've read the last couple of years, and probably the best on the Cold War. Gives an inside view on how the Cold War was perceived by the "Other" while still adhering to the basic rules of historiography.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engaging and enjoyable analysis of the Cold War from sources on both sides, Zubok has access to Soviet Archives.