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An expert and engaging account of the impact of the Cold War on the modern global economy.

About the Author

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.

Reviews

It reads like a thriller...a gripping chronicle of the second half of our century
*European*

A thoughtful, thought-provoking book, which any foreign correspondent would be proud to have written
*Literary Review*

Walker's book is eminently readable. He tells an exciting story well, combining his journalistic skills with extensive research
*Times Educational Supplement*

Walker, Washington bureau chief for Britain's Guardian , here traces the course of the Cold War from Yalta in 1945 through the Korean War, the Kennedy-Khrushchev confrontations, Vietnam, the ``New Cold War'' during the Reagan administration, the advent of glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev and the ``year of miracles'' (1989) which brought down the Berlin Wall. The author is concerned with demonstrating, first, that the superpowers found limited responses to crises (the Berlin blockade and airlift didn't grow into a direct military confrontation; the Korean War didn't spread throughout Asia) and, second, how the stability resulting from the Cold War balance of power set the stage for a new international economic system. This cogent reevaluation of the Cold War as a form of economic competition argues that its end marked a shift away from the geo-strategic toward the geo-economic and an accelerated expansion of world trade. (June)

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 *