The Global Cold War: Third World
Interventions and the Making of Our
Times by Odd Arne Westad
Outstanding Overview Of A Neglected Topic
The Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States
indelibly shaped the world we live in today--especially international politics,
economics, and military affairs. This volume shows how the globalization
of the Cold War during the 20th century created the foundations for most of
todays key international conflicts, including the war on terror. Odd Arne
Westad examines the origins and course of Third World revolutions and
the ideologies that drove the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. towards
interventionism. He focuses on how these interventions gave rise to
resentments and resistance that, in the end, helped to topple one and to
seriously challenge the other superpower. In addition, he demonstrates
how these worldwide interventions determined the international and
domestic framework within which political, social and cultural changes took
place in such countries as China, Indonesia, Iran, Ethiopia, Angola, Cuba,

and Nicaragua. According to Westad, these changes, plus the ideologies,
movements and states that interventionism stirred up, constitute the real
legacy of the Cold War. Odd Arne Westad is Professor of International
History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 2004
he was named head of department and co-director of the new LSE Cold
War Studies Centre. Professor Westad is the author, or editor, of ten
books on contemporary international history including Decisive
Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 (2003) and, with Jussi
Hanhimaki, The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness
Accounts (2003). In addition, he is a founding editor of the journal Cold
War History.
Personal Review: The Global Cold War: Third World
Interventions and the Making of Our Times by Odd Arne Westad
This fine book is devoted to a hugely important topic typically neglected in
most discussions of the Cold War; the course and impact of the Cold War
in the Third World. Most overview monographs on the Cold War
concentrate on US-Soviet relations and/or the impact of the Cold War in
Europe and Japan. Westad successfully attempts an overview and
structural analysis of the Cold War in the Third World. Westad opens with
a pair of summary chapters on the USA and Soviet Union leading up to the
beginning of the Cold War. He then covers the early decades of the Cold
War in the Third World concisely, and devotes much of the book to the last
2 decades of the Cold War, including detailed analyses of the events in
Afghanistan, Africa, and Central America. Based on a wealth of secondary
sources and analysis of primary literature from both US and Soviet
archives, the narrative is comprehensive, clear, and punctuated with
thoughtful analysis.
There is a lot of surprising information. While many readers will be aware
of US interventions in places like Guatemala and Iran, Westad's
descriptions of the depth of US interventions in places like Indonesia and
Brazil will come as a surprise. Similarly, his description of how the Soviet
involvement in the Third World came to be seen as a crucial element of the
legitimacy of the Soviet state goes a long way towards explaining why the
events in Afghanistan had such importance. With respect to the
battleground states of the various Third World countries where US and
Soviet interventions took place, this is generally a series of tragic stories,
usually involving considerable bloodshed and impoverishment.
Westad goes considerably beyond good narrative. Several well articulated
themes run through the narrative. A basic concept is that the Cold War
was driven by two competing ideologies about what should be the basis of
modern society - American liberal capitalism and Soviet communism.
Westad is very good on how ideological considerations consistently drove
US and Soviet policy decisions, including the many cases where ideology
led to gross misunderstandings of reality. Another important theme is the
independent role of local elites in Third World countries. Over and over
again, these elites or portions of them sought superpower support to

pursue their own ends, often quite different from those of the superpowers.
This led, for example, to the depressingly frequent US support of brutal
dictatorships and the Soviet support of regimes who suppressed local
communist parties. Westad is very good as well at showing how the Cold
War involvement of the superpowers was entangled with decolonialization,
another important theme. Both the US and Soviet Union presented
themselves as, and made serious efforts to act as, modernizers. In a
series of particularly ironic developments, both US and Soviet policies
often mimicked the development policies of the imperial states they
displaced.
My only substantial criticisms of Westad are his treatment of the origins of
the Cold War. Westad presents US policies as rooted in a long history of
US expansionism and capitalist ideology. There is considerable truth in
this position but it ignores some of the specific circumstances of the 1940s.
The failure of the post-WWI settlement seemed to demand a dominant
international US role after WWII. Similarly, as Westad's own narrative
shows, US fears of the Soviet Union were driven in good part by Stalin's
aggressive and paranoid behavior.
Westad concludes by highlighting the frequently tragic consequences of
US and Soviet intervention in Third World states, often transforming local
conflicts into major disasters. The results of US and Soviet interventions in
the Third World are among the most important results of the Cold War, and
these results have been largely negative.
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times by Odd
Arne Westad 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price!