An edition of The Cold War (2005)

The Cold War

A Military History

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Last edited by LeadSongDog
January 7, 2022 | History
An edition of The Cold War (2005)

The Cold War

A Military History

  • 4 Want to read
  • 1 Currently reading

Even fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, it is still hard to grasp that we no longer live under its immense specter. For nearly half a century, from the end of World War II to the early 1990s, all world events hung in the balance of a simmering dispute between two of the greatest military powers in history. Hundreds of millions of people held their collective breath as the United States and the Soviet Union, two national ideological entities, waged proxy wars to determine spheres of influence--and millions of others perished in places like Korea, Vietnam, and Angola, where this cold war flared hot. Such a consideration of the Cold War--as a military event with sociopolitical and economic overtones--is the crux of this stellar collection of twenty-six essays compiled and edited by Robert Cowley, the longtime editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. Befitting such a complex and far-ranging period, the volume's contributing writers cover myriad angles. John Prados, in "The War Scare of 1983," shows just how close we were to escalating a war of words into a nuclear holocaust. Victor Davis Hanson offers "The Right Man," his pungent reassessment of the bellicose air-power zealot Curtis LeMay as a man whose words were judged more critically than his actions. The secret war also gets its due in George Feiffer's "The Berlin Tunnel," which details the charismatic C.I.A. operative "Big Bill" Harvey's effort to tunnel under East Berlin and tap Soviet phone lines--and the Soviets' equally audacious reaction to the plan; while "The Truth About Overflights," by R. Cargill Hall, sheds light on some of the Cold War's best-kept secrets. The often overlooked human cost of fighting the Cold War finds a clear voice in "MIA" by Marilyn Elkins, the widow of a Navy airman, who details the struggle to learn the truth about her husband, Lt. Frank C. Elkins, whose A-4 Skyhawk disappeared over Vietnam in 1966. In addition there are profiles of the war's "front lines"--Dien Bien Phu, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs--as well as of prominent military and civil leaders from both sides, including Harry S. Truman, Nikita Khrushchev, Dean Acheson, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Richard M. Nixon, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, and others.Encompassing so many perspectives and events, The Cold War succeeds at an impossible task: illuminating and explaining the history of an undeclared shadow war that threatened the very existence of humankind.From the Hardcover edition.

Publish Date
Publisher
Random House
Language
English
Pages
496

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: The Cold War
The Cold War
2009, Random House Publishing Group
E-book in English
Cover of: The Cold War
The Cold War: a military history
2006, Random House Trade Paperbacks
in English - Random House Trade Paperback ed.
Cover of: The Cold War
The Cold War: A Military History
November 7, 2006, Random House Trade Paperbacks
Paperback in English
Cover of: The Cold War
The Cold War: A Military History
September 6, 2005, Random House
in English
Cover of: The Cold War
The Cold War: a military history
2005, Random House
in English - 1st ed.
Cover of: The Cold War
The Cold War: a military history
2005, Random House
in English - 1st ed.

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Book Details


ID Numbers

Open Library
OL7426087M
Internet Archive
coldwar00robe_1
ISBN 10
0375509100
ISBN 13
9780375509100
Library Thing
163218
Goodreads
2172655

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Internet Archive item record

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
January 7, 2022 Edited by LeadSongDog Edited without comment.
January 9, 2019 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
August 5, 2010 Edited by IdentifierBot added LibraryThing ID
April 24, 2010 Edited by Open Library Bot Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs.
April 29, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record