Henry Heller The Cold War And the New Imperialism

Annotation

For both the United States and the Soviet Union, asserts Heller (history, U. of Manitoba, Canada), the Cold War served as a means of blocking internal social and political revolutions around the world be redefining them in terms of international ideological and state rivalry between East and West. He explores the evolution of the Cold War as an international system from its original construction in the wake of World War II to the fall of the Soviet Union, looking first at the imposition of Stalinism in Europe and the expansion of the communist sphere through revolutions in China, Korea, and Vietnam in combination with the US construction of a global system of military bases and political alliances intended both as a counter to communism and as a means to project its own power abroad. He also examines how the decolonization and national liberation movements of Asia and Africa, as well as the populist rebellions and revolutions in Latin America, were influenced by the international Cold War system and explores the 1970s transition from third world revolution to neoliberalism.