The World the Cold War Made: Order, Chaos and the Return of History

The World the Cold War Madeexamines the Cold War and its lasting legacy by carefully exploring the creation and structure of the postwar settlement; its successes, failures and adaptations; and the eventual coming apart of the post war order in the 1980s and early 1990s. James Cronin shows how this legacy has allowed some nations and industries to grow but has blocked others' paths to economic development. States whose very identities are threatened and whose positions within the larger community are in flux struggle to find a path to prosperity, while a competitive logic sharply limits the options available to them. At the same time, Cronin states, the end of the Cold War has removed powerful external constraints on the political choices of nations, allowing previously disenfranchised peoples the freedom to chart distinctive paths into the next century that are more responsive to their own histories.