The World of the Cold War 1945-1991

by Vladislav 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, Politics, Russia, American History

510 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2025

Reviews

[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.

[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.

[Charlie]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Chris E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing too earth-shattering here: just a solid, comprehensive rendering of the Cold War, featuring greater sympathy for Soviet perspectives.

[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