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This is a preview of the Shortform book summary of The Cold War by Odd Arne Westad.
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1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Cold War

The Cold War by Odd Arne Westad is a comprehensive analysis of the global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1991. Westad argues that the Cold War was a global conflict that shaped the world we live in today. He contends that the Cold War was not just a struggle between two superpowers, but a clash of ideologies that affected every corner of the globe. Westad's analysis is based on extensive research and a deep understanding of the historical context of the Cold War.

Westad is a Norwegian historian and...

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The Cold War Summary Foundations and Dynamics of Cold War Clashes

Westad argues that rapid economic, social, and technological changes influenced the Cold War. These changes included the creation and destruction of global markets, the birth of new technologies, and increased mobility and urbanization. Additionally, the clash between socialism and capitalism had a significant impact, as did the proliferation of new states and the rise of the US as a global power. He notes that by 1900, fewer than 50 sovereign nations existed worldwide, but today, the number is nearly 200. In 1870, the United States' GDP accounted for 9% of the world's total, but at the Cold War's peak in 1955, it had increased to about 28%. Currently, it stands at about 22%.

(Shortform note: In One World Divisible, David Reynolds argues that the post-1945 international order was increasingly knit together by dense networks of trade, finance, communications, and mass culture, yet simultaneously divided by an East-West ideological rivalry. He notes that governments and publics treated almost every economic trend, technological achievement, and political upheaval as a running verdict on their respective systems. Decolonization...

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The Cold War Summary Regional & Global Manifestations of the Cold War

Westad notes that Cold War dynamics influenced the formation of the Non-Aligned bloc, and this group of countries refused to take sides. Led by India, Indonesia, Ghana, Egypt, and Yugoslavia, the movement was formalized in 1961 at a meeting in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Its founders feared that the conclusion of colonial rule would result in fresh conflicts and believed that countries worldwide could organize themselves without resorting to war.

The US Criticized Non-Alignment

Not everyone agreed that countries should be able to remain non-aligned. In Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World, Robert B. Rakove notes that US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles condemned the very notion of neutralism, describing it as “immoral and shortsighted.” Dulles argued that in a world locked in ideological confrontation, states had a moral obligation to align with the United States and the broader “free world.” Efforts by postcolonial leaders to remain nonaligned appeared to him not as a legitimate stance but as a form of dangerous equivocation between freedom and...

The Cold War

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