General

Calvocoressi, P., World Politics since 1945 (London: Longman, 1991). Provides a comprehensive survey of the major developments in world politics from 1945 to 1990, including analysis of the relationship between the superpower confrontation and the 'Third World'.

Dunbabin, J. P. D., International Politics since 1945, i, The Cold War: The Great Powers and their Allies, and ii, The Post-Imperial Age: The Great Powers and the Wider World (London: Longman, 1994). This 2-volume work provides an analytical account of the principal events and developments in international politics since 1945. Vol. 1 focuses on the superpower conflict and the role of Europe in the cold war; vol. 2 covers decolonization, regional issues, and the new challenges facing the international system in later decades.

The cold war

Gaddis, J., Russia, The Soviet Union and the United States: An Interpretative History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990). Provides an overview of relations between Russia, then the Soviet Union, and the United States, and examines the different phases of the relationship, including the origins, dynamics, and end of the cold war.

Halliday, F., The Making of the Second Cold War (London: Verso, 2nd edn. 1986). Explores the phase in the cold war of Soviet-American antagonism, 1979-85, and places this in a broader thematic and historical analysis of the cold war.

The bomb

Lebow, R. N., and Stein, J. G., We All Lost the Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Provides a revisionist interpretation of the cold war which reassesses the role and risks of nuclear deterrence by detailed examination of two case studies: the Cuban missile crisis and the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

Newhouse, J., The Nuclear Age (London; Michael Joseph, 1989). Provides a history of nuclear weapons which examines the technological and political dimensions of the arms race, from the use of the bomb at Hiroshima to the debates and issues of the 1980s.

Bird, K., and Lifschultz, L. (eds.), Hiroshima's Shadow (Stony Creek, Conn.: The Pamphleteer's Press, 1998). A wide-ranging collection of articles on the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which provide comprehensive coverage of the military, political, ethical, and hlstoriographical issues and debates about the use of atomic weapons in 1945.

Decolonization

Law, D. A., Eclipse of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). This provides a detailed analysis of the British withdrawal from empire, and draws comparisons with other experiences such as the French in Africa and the Dutch in Indonesia.

WEB LINKS

http://cwlhp.sl.edu Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: Cold War International History Project.

Chapter 5. The end of the cold war

Richard Crockatt

• Introduction

• Internal factors: the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union

• The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe

• External factors: relations with the United States

• The interaction between internal and external environments

• Conclusion

READER'S GUIDE

The end of the cold war represented a turning point in the structures of international politics, in the roles and functions of nation-states, and in international organizations. The chief cause of the end of the cold war was the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This had deep internal roots in the history of Soviet bloc societies but a full explanation of the end of the cold war must include examination of external pressures, particularly the policies of the United States, and growing relative economic disadvantage experienced by the Soviet bloc over the post-war period. Close attention is given in this chapter to the policies and personality of Mikhail Gorbachev but due emphasis is also given to historical and systemic factors in the international environment. Opinions on the impli­cations of the end of the cold war have been varied and often conflicting, but by the turn of the millennium it was evident that the issue of globalization had replaced the characteristic cold war concerns with superpower bipolarity, the nuclear arms race, and ideology.