The regional cold wars in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East
Subtitle: crucial periods and turning points
By: edited by Lorenz M. Lüthi
Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford University Press
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 387
ISBN-13: 9780804792851
Subjects: Cold War; Foreign relations; History
Description: Beginning with Stalin's death in 1953 and ending with the dissolution of Soviet-U.S. antagonism in 1991, this book systematically explores the crucial turning points in the Cold War on all of its diverse fronts. The simplistic U.S. vs. Soviet analysis can obscure the fact that this war was fought by blocs of nations and in various regions around the world. Such a history lends itself to a collection of essays exploring the mutual interconnections of events in diverse regional Cold War theaters. "How do we understand the Cold War, " writes the editor, Lorenz Lüthi, "if from one direction, we narrow the focus of inquiry from the superpower conflict to the level of regional struggles, and widen the focus from individual country case studies to the sub-systemic level of the Cold War?" The volume covers Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East in the crucial periods of the Cold War. Contributions are based on documents from China, India, the Arab Middle East, Serbia, the former Soviet Union, former East Germany, former Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and its contributors include many of the leading scholars in international Cold War history. Their work reveals the agency of smaller powers in the development and end of the Cold War, including Third World powers Egypt, Iraq, and Vietnam.--
Table of contents: title: Introduction / Lorenz M. Lüthi; title: Agency, structure, and interdependence: reflections on the regional and global cold wars / Robert J. McMahon; title: Part I. 1953-1956; title: Changing historical trajectories at the nexus of 1953-1956 / Christopher E. Goscha; title: A window of opportunities in Europe / Lorenz M. Lüthi; title: China's emerging role on the world stage / Qiang Zhai; title: Constructing Nasser's neutralism: Egypt and the rise of nonalignment in the Middle East / Jovan Cavoki; title: Part II. 1965-1969; title: The great transition: from geopolitics to geoeconomics / Andrew Preston; title: Europe and the making of Détente / Vojtech Mastny; title: China's turn to the world / Lorenz M. Lüthi and Chen Jian; title: The Cold War in the Arab world / Guy Laron; title: Part III. 1978-1983; title: Shadow boxing: or, pretending to wage cold war in a (nearly) postideological era / David A. Welch; title: The second Cold War in Europe: the paradoxes of a turbulent time / William R. Keylor; title: Strategic shifts in East Asia / Lorenz M. Lüthi; title: A crescent of crisis: the Middle East and Persian Gulf / Craig Daigle; title: Part IV. The late 1980s; title: End and ends: the Cold War in international history at the systemic and subsystemic levels / J. Simon Rofe; title: Gorbachev in Europe and Asia / Sergey Radchenko; title: In a blind spot: Eastern Europe and the superpowers in 1989 / Constantine Pleshakov; title: From reconciliation to estrangement: relations between China and Eastern Europe / Péter Vámos; title: The international system and the Middle East regional system: interactions during the transition from bipolarity to unipolarity / Yair Evron.