The Longman companion to Cold War and detente, 1941-91

This is the third volume to appear in the new series of Longman Companions to History under the General Editorship of Chris Cook and John Stevenson. Each volume will provide a handy reference work to a major area of historical study, and is written by a leading scholar in the field. Today, the Cold War is a chapter of history that is ended; whatever the future brings, it will be different. John W. Young's book is therefore timely as well as useful. It surveys East-West relations, in all their manifestations, from the Grand Alliance of the Second World War to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. For most of this fifty-year span, the tensions of the Cold War were the dominating fact of world history; and this volume provides a concise guide to its major characters, conflicts, crises and conferences, setting them in their full international context.^ It contains a major Chronology, set out in 12 stages, which draws together all the different aspects and theatres of the Cold War into a single 'narrative'; concise accounts of 70 Crises and Conflicts, and their significance; notes on 28 Conferences and Summits; notes on 40 Treaties and Organizations; lists and dates of the key Offic