The West continued to be alarmed by the prospect of defeat right up to the Soviet empire's last breath.

The Cold War was more of a global conflict than was either of this century's two major wars far more than a confrontation between states or even empires, it was, as Martin Walker puts it, 'a total war between economic and social systems, an industrial test to destruction.' Walker reminds us how easy it is to forget that there were many occasions in the late 1940s in which victory seemed far from assured, and that this uncertainty lent a particular urgency to the efforts of postwar Western leaders. From the origins of the Marshall Plan, which revived Europe after World War II, and the strategic decision to rebuild a defeated Japan into a bulwark against China, to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, this authoritative work reveals how the West was built into an economic alliance that overpowered the Soviet economy while also unleashing global economic forces that today challenge the traditional nation-state. Now that it's over, it's crucial to our future to understand how the Cold War has shaped us and, especially, to recognize it as the economic and political dynamic that determined the structure of today's global economy. 'The history of the Cold War has been the history of the world since 1954.' So begins The Cold War: A History, a wide-ranging narrative by award-winning political commentator Martin Walker, which was one of the first major studies of its kind.

The Cold War by Martin Walker