The current obsession with international terrorism has dimmed our collective memory. It was only 14 years ago the Soviet Union collapsed and historians were declaring that such an unexpected and tumultuous event could only herald “the end of history”. Many would argue that it was the global bipartite control of the two superpowers – the USA and the Soviet Union – during the Cold War era which kept the forces of terrorism in check. An interested reader of history who would like to learn more about the Cold War would be well served by reading A to Z of the Cold War, a historical dictionary.
The accuracy and authority of this reference book is solid. The two authors are scholars on American foreign policy and diplomatic history; their British education has allowed them to write about the Cold War from a more neutral and global perspective than if they been American‐educated. The work functions as much more than a traditional dictionary. The first few pages provide a listing of acronyms and abbreviations in order to better understand the entries. There is also a detailed chronology of events that begins when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and thus started World War II through to 1991 when the Soviet Union is formally dissolved. The next section is a 26‐six page introduction that is so concise, it could have been called the “History of the Cold War in a Nutshell”. This section alone would be a useful read for an undergraduate student looking for a primer on the subject. The introduction covers the beginning of the Cold War in Europe, the creation of NATO, the Warsaw Pact, discord at the United Nations, the Korean and Vietnam War, the foreign policies of Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan to the reign of Gorbachev and the end of Communism.
The dictionary section is more like an encyclopedia. Entries are alphabetical without cross‐references. Entries can be quite long but in general are between two to three paragraphs and one page in length. They describe political and military leaders, countries and their allies and foes, main issues and conflicts, policy doctrines, treaties, weapons systems, and military and political strategies. For example, the “C” section covers: Cambodia, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, CIA, China, Winston Churchill, the Congo, Containment, Cuban Missile Crisis, and Czechoslovakia. The entries provide a comprehensive definition and a satisfactory background to complicated concepts. My only complaint is the lack of cross‐references already mentioned. The final section is a select bibliography of key journal articles and book titles which are further subdivided into the following headings: General Survey, The Early Cold War, The 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and The End of the Cold War, and Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East. The book also contains an index.
I highly recommend this reference book for all public, school, and academic libraries. It strength lies in its authority, flexibility, and ease of use. Useful for the layperson looking for a basic understanding of political events, the undergraduate student writing a term paper and the scholar doing a quick fact search.
