The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Volume 4, America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945–1991

This is an elegant and concise history of American foreign relations during the Cold War era, based on the most recent American, Chinese, and Soviet literature, written from a post-Cold War perspective. All of the major foreign policy issues, including the origins of the Soviet-American conflict; the extension of the confrontation to Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere on the periphery; wars in Korea and Vietnam; crises involving the Taiwan Straits, Berlin, and Cuba; the rise and fall of détente; imperial overreach; and the critical roles of Reagan and Gorbachev in the 1980s are carefully analysed and clearly explained.