The Cold War: And the Making of the Modern World

Description

In this history of the Cold War, award-winning political commentator Martin Walker explains it as an economic and political dynamic that determined the structure of the modern global economy. Using recently-opened Kremlin archives and his own experience as "The Guardian"'s bureau chief in Moscow during perestroika and in Washington during the Bush years, Walker analyzes what, more than any other single strategic conflict, has shaped the modern world.

Martin Walker is the Senior Director of the Global Business Policy Council and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of United Press International. For 25 years he worked for the Guardian, holding the position of bureau chief in Moscow and Washington DC, and appeared as a regular commentator for CNN-TV. His pioneering work on Gorbachev and perestroika, The Walking Giant, was translated into ten languages. Educated as a historian in Oxford and Harvard, he was born into the Cold War and had a ringside seat at its close. He interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher and George Bush, attended the great summits of the 1980s, and researched this book in Moscow, Prague, Tokyo, London and Washington. A published novelist and poet, Martin Walker has also written books on the world's press and on right-wing politics in Britain.

It reads like a thriller...a gripping chronicle of the second half of our century -- Vitali Vitaliev * European * A thoughtful, thought-provoking book, which any foreign correspondent would be proud to have written -- Charles Wheeler * Literary Review * Walker's book is eminently readable. He tells an exciting story well, combining his journalistic skills with extensive research * Times Educational Supplement *