Pages: 8

This brief Introduction spells out the approach of this book, the main themes, and the argument before examining World War II as a watershed event dividing the era beforehand from the era afterward. The Introduction ends with a section defining the main themes of the book.

Pages: 21

No chapter abstract available.

Pages: 8

This chapter looks at the two main conferences during World War II that shaped the postwar world, Yalta and Potsdam, at the imposition of Soviet control in Eastern Europe following the war, and at the key pieces of the US Cold War policy of containment: the Truman Doctrine; Marshall Plan; and NATO.

Pages: 11

This chapter focuses on the Soviet Union, with a look at the Marxist-Leninist ideology on which it was based, and the post-Soviet period in Russia and Ukraine (and the conflict between the two), wrapping up with an examination of Stalinism in Eastern Europe.

Pages: 80

No chapter abstract available.

Pages: 24

This chapter examines the history of south and southwest Asia with the case studies of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, emphasizing the impact of British colonial rule on the Indian subcontinent, one legacy of which was partition and the birth of Pakistan, while also focusing on the nonviolent movement for independence from British rule led by Mohandas K. Gandhi and on the fate of India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947. The chapter ends with an overview of the history of Afghanistan, site of the last major Cold War proxy war in a country that has suffered tremendous privations and difficulties over the past forty plus years.

Pages: 30

This chapter focuses on the modern history of East Asia, starting with background events leading to China’s 1949 Revolution and the policies of “Constant Revolution” promoted by its communist leader Mao Zedong for the first decades of the People’s Republic of China before turning to the dramatic transformation of the country in the half century since Mao’s death. The chapter then looks at the difficult history of Korea, the one country still divided from the Cold War era, and Japan with its rather remarkable rise from isolationism in the nineteenth century to world power status in the twentieth showing that there is more than one form of capitalism in the global economy. The chapter ends with a brief examination of the economic downturn or “Asian Flu” that affected many of the “Pacific Rim” countries in the late 1990s.

Pages: 24

This chapter examines three case studies from Southeast Asia, an area colonized by France and, in the case of Indonesia, the Dutch. It begins with Vietnam, whose difficult history was closely intertwined with that of the US in the Cold War era, including a focus on the US-Vietnam War and its legacy in the country. That conflict spilled over into neighboring Cambodia and the chapter looks at the tragic history of the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the terrible genocide it carried out in the late 1970s. Genocide remains an important theme as the chapter ends by looking at Indonesia, another country with a bloody Cold War history.

Pages: 63

No chapter abstract available.

Pages: 24

This chapter traces the history of Persia/Iran primarily from the era of British and Russian influence (though not colonial rule) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to Reza Shah Pahlavi’s secularist rule following World War I and that of his son, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, during and after World War II, including the political rivalry between him and leading secular nationalist Muhammad Mosaddegh, who led the drive to nationalize Iran’s oil. That move placed the country and Mosaddegh into conflict with Britain and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and culminated in a coup, the CIA’s 1953 “Operation Ajax,” that ousted Mosaddegh and restored the Shah to greater power, which he used to carry out a modernizing reform program dubbed the “White Revolution,” aspects of which contributed to his downfall in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini as well as the US hostage crisis. The Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, in which the US covertly and illegally supplied weapons to both sides, cemented Khomeini’s hold on power, and since his death in 1989 the Islamic Republic of Iran has fluctuated between more moderate and more hardline rulers.

Pages: 18

This chapter looks at the case studies of Iraq, Kuwait, and Syria with an emphasis on the wars that have defined the histories of those countries in recent decades, the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the First Gulf War of the early 1990s, the Second Gulf War of the 2000s, and the Syrian Civil War that in many ways is still playing out. The chapter ends with the Rise and Fall of ISIS, a major terrorist organization that created its own state in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s.

Pages: 19

This chapter examines the highly contentious Arab-Israeli Conflict, focusing primarily on Israel and Palestine but also looking at the role of neighboring Arab states as well as of Britain and the US. The chapter traces the roots of the conflict to Biblical times before jumping to the rise of the Zionist Movement in Europe in the late nineteenth century, highlighting how the settlement of European Jews in Palestine, part of the Ottoman Empire until after World War I and ruled as a British “Mandate” from the end of the war until 1948, contributed to growing tensions and eventually war in the late 1940s that culminated in an independent Israel. A large part of the chapter focuses on the many wars and conflicts that have defined this issue since, including the recent Gazan War.

Pages: 82

No chapter abstract available.

Pages: 18

This chapter considers several case studies in North Africa, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia, showing how each was affected to varying degrees by European expansion and colonialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries before tracing developments in each following their independence from European rule. The chapter ends with a summation of events in these countries since the Arab Spring that emerged in this part of the world in 2010–11.

Pages: 16

This chapter examines Africa’s West Coast with four case studies, Ghana, one of the first African states to receive independence during de-colonization, Nigeria, the most populous African state, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, both of which were partially founded by freed American and Caribbean slaves. Colonialism profoundly affected all but Liberia, which was never colonized, leaving a legacy of struggle and instability in the years since independence.

Pages: 10

This chapter examines the former largest African country (Sudan) and the world’s newest country (South Sudan) that broke off from Sudan in 2011. One of the first African countries to receive independence during de-colonization in the mid-1950s, Sudan was wrought by regional divisions from the outset, with the predominantly Muslim northern and central parts of the country dominating the mineral-rich and disproportionately Christian south, leading to a civil war that started even before independence (1955) and lasted seventeen years. The discovery of oil in the south in 1979 greatly altered the power dynamics again and led to a second civil war (1983–2003). Sudanese politics was characterized by instability and coups until General Omar al-Bashir seized power in 1989 and ruled for thirty years, overseeing the end of the Second Civil War and the breakaway of South Sudan. Unfortunately, the 2011 referendum in the south that led to that development did not bring peace but instead helped spark a new conflict in the western region of Sudan, Darfur, where Sudanese government-supported militias, the Janjaweed, have carried out genocide against groups in that area. Finally, the overthrow of al-Bashir in 2019 leaves the country now again facing profound difficulties and uncertainties.

Pages: 14

This chapter examines two case studies from East Africa, Kenya and Somalia, highlighting the impact of colonialism in both. Kenya, a British colony, is a prime example of settler colonialism as British settlers took over land in the country’s most fertile region, sparking the Mau Mau Rebellion in the 1950s that hastened de-colonization. Somalia, with its strategic location on the “horn of Africa,” was divided among several colonial powers, leaving a legacy of division that, together with the country’s deeply-rooted clan system has now led to decades of conflict, including a US/UN intervention in the early 1990s, and a failed state.

Pages: 10

This chapter examines the factors leading to the horrid 1994 Rwandan genocide—the European colonial legacy of eugenics, tensions between the country’s two main ethnic groups, the Hutu and Tutsi, the invasion of Rwanda by the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1990, and the sharp drop of coffee prices on the world market in the early/mid-1990s. The chapter examines the spillover effect of that event to neighboring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), a key country in the Cold War at the time of its independence during de-colonization in the 1960s and after and one that has now faced more than thirty years of warfare and instability.

Pages: 12

This chapter looks at two case studies in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and South Africa, which in some ways share similar historical trajectories but are also very different in a lot of ways. Both are examples of settler colonialism, with the British colonizing Zimbabwe and first the Dutch and then also the British colonizing South Africa, leading to a great deal of conflict among the white minority in that country, which gained its “independence” from Britain in 1910. Rhodesian leader Ian Smith tried to maintain white minority rule there but eventually allowed the inevitable transition to black majority rule as resistance leader Robert Mugabe emerged to lead the newly independent country of Zimbabwe in 1980. White minority rule in South Africa remained a while longer but eventually the system of Apartheid put in place there after World War II also gave way to black majority rule in 1994. Both countries have faced serious challenges in the twenty-first century.

Pages: 48

No chapter abstract available.

Pages: 18

This chapter focuses on three case studies from South America, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile. The three share a great deal in common, including all being former Spanish colonies of the first “wave” of colonialism, but they are also very different in many ways. Venezuela, an oil-rich country and the most ethnically diverse of the three, did not industrialize as much in the mid-twentieth century as the other two and has suffered a history of political and economic upheaval lasting several decades and counting. Argentina and Chile industrialized to a significant degree in part in response to the global Great Depression of the 1930s, and that development led to major social developments and political conflict that played out very differently in those two countries.

Pages: 12

This chapter examines two case studies from Central America, Guatemala and Nicaragua, both part of the Spanish Empire during the first wave of colonialism that developed economies based to varying degrees on cash crop production and a history of political dictatorship in the decades following independence. Both countries also faced the direct impact of US involvement in their political and economic affairs before, during, and after the Cold War, again to varying degrees and also with varying outcomes.

Pages: 12

This chapter on the Caribbean focuses on Haiti and Cuba, where we see many of the same themes and issues from the previous chapters such as the profound impact of (first wave) colonialism and later the Cold War. Both countries were transformed during the early colonial period, economically and demographically because of the impact of settler colonialism, the import of African slaves in large numbers, and the near decimation of the islands’ indigenous native populations. During the Cold War both began as staunch US allies with repressive regimes until Cuba dramatically changed course, becoming a Soviet ally following the rise of Fidel Castro in that country’s 1959 Revolution. Cuba became a focal point of Cold War tensions in the early 1960s with the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the subsequent Cuban Missile Crisis. Haiti remained a US ally in the Cold War and experienced serious political, economic, and environmental turmoil over the decades, a situation that has not improved for the country in the twenty-first century.

Pages: 4

This brief conclusion sums up the key points and argument raised in the book, emphasizing the major themes in the history of the contemporary world since 1945, as well as contemplating what may prove to be some of the main issues facing the world’s population going forward.