Table of Contents

Part 1 The origins of the post-1945 world: the Soviet Union and the coming war; east-west relations; the German problem; the German sweep; the Americans; the Far East; the European war and the question of a second front; the war in Asia and the Pacific; Yalta; Potsdam; the balance of power. Part 2 The United States as a global power: the Soviet Union an eastern Europe; Tito; Soviet expansionism and the west; the United States and the Eastern Bloc; the Marshall plan; America and the enemy states - Japan, Germany; NATO and American leadership. Part 3 The Third World - colonialism, neo-colonialism, and revolution: The West and the Third World; the Second World War and anti-colonialism; the Soviet Union and the Third World; colonialism if possible; independence if necessary; India; the spectre of revolution - China - the Chinese communists, civil war, the impact of Japan and the Second World War to 1949; the Arab-Israeli crisis. Part 4 Asia in crisis: the Far East and Korea - the origins of the war, the course of the war; Vietnam - the French, Vietnamese nationalism, the return of the French, Dien Bien Phu and the Americans, the Geneva conference; SEATO - the People's Republic of China - reconstruction, the transition to socialism, the first five year plan, the hundred flowers, the great leap forward, the restoration of the "bureaucrats", the Sino-Soviet split. Part 5 The alliances: the satellites after 1945; the end of the Stalin era; the succession; the spectre of revolution; de-Stalinization - Poland, Hungary, Albania; the Atlantic alliance; European integration and the German rearmament; competition in the Third World - Iran, the plot to restore the Shah; the Russians and the Third World War - Suez. Part 6 Decolonization in Africa: the Maghrib - the war in Algeria, De Gaulle and the fifth republic, independent Algeria; south of the Sahara - British west Africa, the French colonies; the other empires - the Congo, the future. Part 7 A neo-colonial world - Latin America: the neo-colonial era; Argentina and Juan Peron; the United States and hemispheric security; counter-revolution - Guatemala; revolution - Cuba - the revolution in action, to the Bay of Pigs, the missile crisis, the aftermath. Part 8 The wars in Indo-China: Diem; Laos; Managing the crisis; the Buddhists; the assassination; the Americanization of the war; Tonkin; escalation; Tet; Nixon; the war in Cambodia; protest; peace for America; recriminations. Part 9 Asia's great powers: the cultural revolution -the Shanghai People's Commune - the fall of Lin, the return of Deng, the post-Mao era. (Part contents).

About the Author

T. E. Vadney was born in 1939 and is Professor of History at the University of Manitoba in Canada. He organized the programme in contemporary world history and he continues to teach and write on US and global affairs.