This is an authoritative and comprehensive history of the Cold War and the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union that has dominated world politics in the second half of the twentieth century.

Part I: Perspectives 1. Introduction: The Fifty Years' War 2. The American and Soviet Foreign Policy Part II: The Emergence of a Bipolar World 1941-1953 3. The Second World War and the Struggle for Peace 1941-1946 4. `Two Ways of Life': The Cold War in Europe 1947-1953 5. Cold War: The Far Eastern Dimension, 1945-1950 Part III: Globalism and the Limits of Bipolarity 1953-1964 6. Peaceful Coexistence and Irreconcilable Conflict 7. The Nuclear Arms Race 1945-1963 8. The United States, the Soviet Union and the Third World Part IV: Detente and its Limits 1965-1981 9. Detente in the Making 1965-1973 10. The Vietnam War and the Superpower Triangle 11. Detente Under Pressure 1973-1981 Part V: Cold War V International Politics: The Denouement 1981-1991 12. Reaganism and the Spectre of Communism 13. Gorbachev and the New World Disorder Conclusion