Review of the Global Cold War Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times
Odd Arne Westad. The Global Cold War: 3rd Globe Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 498 South. $35.00 (textile), ISBN 978-0-521-85364-4.
Reviewed by Joel Ribnick
Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (April, 2008)
O. A. Westad: The Global Cold War
Before even opening the front comprehend information technology is articulate that Odd Arne Westad has gear up high ambitions for his book The Global Cold War: Third Earth Interventions and the Making of Our Times. This is because the word "global" immediately expands the telescopic of Westad'southward inquiry to include much more than the traditional Soviet Matrimony-United states of america, or capitalism-communism dichotomies, which are then often the focus of Cold War histories. Westad, Director of the Cold State of war Studies Heart at the London School of Economics, instead aims to break the boundaries of classical thought in favor of a more inclusive and all-encompassing survey of worldly events that together shape the Cold War. His research is indeed impressive. In improver to using a varied host of secondary sources and published personal accounts, Westad also incorporates official archived documents from a number of nations including the Us, Soviet Matrimony, Serbia and Montenegro and South Africa.
Westad openly declares in the introduction that his Bancroft Prize winning volume "is … about the creation of today's world" (p. one). He sets out to explore U.S. and Soviet interest in 3rd World countries, focusing particularly on the outcome of intervention on colonial nations (p. ane). It must exist mentioned that Westad defines the Third World as "one-time colonial or semicolonial countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that were bailiwick to European [or American or Russian] economic and political domination" (p. 3). That being said, the bulk of Westad'southward work thus deals with the southern hemisphere and Southeast Asia.
The Global Cold State of war has a very unique structure, due more often than not to its wide focus. Since the book does not aim to tackle one consequence but rather seeks to explain the mode in which today'southward earth was shaped, Westad chooses to dissever his book past topic equally opposed to chronologically. The first 2 chapters outline United States' and Soviet ideologies. These chapters lay the foundation on which the remainder of the book relies. Westad does a very expert task making clear the conceptions and behavior motivating the ii super powers' deportment around the globe throughout the Cold War.
In order to define the United States' ideological reasoning for intervention, Westad searches as far back as 1785. His analysis of colonial and 19th century America is brief, simply it does assist the reader to empathize what Westad ways when he says American'south believed their values to be "teleological […] What is America today will be the world tomorrow" (p. 9). By the time of the Cold War, Westad concludes, American strange policy of intervention was broad and broad reaching. The United states' ideological stance had get grounded in the belief that wherever communism could exist, commonwealth and commercialism should be.
Westad deals similarly in tracing the evolution of Soviet strange policy. The vast bulk of the second chapter focuses on Russia subsequently the 1917 revolution, but Westad does make sure to explain the how Russian federation'southward history as a czarist nation ultimately helped create policy decisions. The chapter shows the progression from Russian imperialist policy to the adoption of Marxist-Leninist ethics and eventually to Stalinism. Ultimately, Westad explains Soviet Cold War strange policy as a mission to be "part of a world-historical progression toward a given goal" (p. 72). Westad'due south full clarification of Soviet policy draws many parallels—with obvious points of conflict—with U.S. policy, which allows the residuum of the book to successfully defend his notion of a "global" Common cold War.
With the superpowers' ideologies adequately explained, the book then shifts to the oft-ignored Third Earth. Starting after World War I, and accelerating greatly after World War 2, the 3rd Globe began to awaken from its period of colonial status. Most relevant to The Global Cold War were the transformations undertaken by an ideological group of Third Earth leaders. Westad chronicles the surprising developments at the Bandung briefing in 1955 and the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961. These two developments represent the coming-of-age of the Third World, only the momentum congenital would not last long. Past 1970 nearly all of the leaders convened at Bandung and involved with the NAM in Belgrade, 1961, had fallen from power. The same countries that had preached peaceful coexistence and mutual respect at Bandung were to wage war against one another in India. Shortly afterwards, though not explicitly related, the Middle Eastward was to become embroiled in conflict equally well. It is at this point, Westad argues, that Soviet and U.S. interventionist actions were taken to a new level, causing disruptions throughout the entire 3rd World.
For the next five chapters, Westad discusses incidents of U.Due south. and Soviet intervention all beyond the globe, also noting China's function in world events. Though he does not go into nifty detail near Red china's Cold State of war policy, Westad does explicate the unique relationship betwixt China and the superpowers. China was oftentimes at odds with the United States, just Westad is also careful to demonstrate the ways in which Beijing and Moscow struggled for influence over domestic and global communist policy. He likewise, not surprisingly, covers Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, and the likes, and even devotes a number of pages to some of the smaller, oft-overlooked conflicts. While many people know virtually Algeria'southward struggle for liberation, those same people may not know the story of Nicaragua or Somalia and how superpower intervention affected such countries' development. In addressing each of these cases, with the use of many historical records and archived documents, Westad presents a largely unbiased history of how the country at mitt progressed in its struggle for liberation and modernization. Possibly the best example of this is Westad's account of Angola in the 1970s.
In Jan of 1975, Portugal and the Angolan liberation movements signed the Alvor Agreement, stipulating complete Portuguese withdrawal past Nov. However, well before this agreement was signed, the United States, Soviet Union and China had all begun jockeying for position in Angola. The Soviet Spousal relationship was backing the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Republic of angola and its leader Antonio Aghostinho Neto; the The states and China were both lending their support to the National Front for the Liberation of Angola, led by Holden Roberto, simply for very different reasons. What Westad succeeds in illuminating, though, is that the subsequent Angolan civil war was truly dictated by the intervention of the USSR, U.S. and People's republic of china, all iii of whom were involved for cocky-serving purposes.
The Usa was seeking to reestablish its international prowess later on declining in Vietnam, the Soviet Spousal relationship wanted to repair the floundering socialist cell in Angola, and China wanted to curtail Soviet growth then every bit to reduce Moscow'southward leverage over Beijing. In the process of creating this "civil" war, the superpowers drew Cuba, Congo, Zaire, Democratic people's republic of korea, Romania and South Africa into the fracas, elevating one nation'south struggle for liberation into a global matter. The account turns nearly comical equally Westad reveals foreign nations' concerns: Moscow had to exist careful in its dealings so as non to break détente; at the same time, Moscow could not explicate this to Cuba because Cuba already took outcome with détente; the U.s.' public had turned against supporting foreign intervention, causing the Senate to withhold funding despite expressed support; South Africa had to pull out of Angola due to lack of U.S. monies; and by "the bound of 1976 the Soviet leaders felt […] that they had won the Angolan state of war" (p. 237). Not only does such a retelling of the events surrounding the Angolan civil state of war provide factual information, but it besides affords the reader with a unique view as to how the Cold State of war played out on a global level.
Westad replicates this sort of account in his analyses of other Third World nations, thus exposing superpower intervention equally a strong force of alter. Chapter later affiliate, case after case, Westad farther convinces the reader that indeed the Cold State of war extended far beyond the borders of the United states of america and Soviet Marriage. The Angolan civil war may have been the virtually poignant example, but certainly the cold warriors had similar effects all throughout the Third World, as explained in the majority of Westad'southward book.
In the final affiliate of the book, Westad ties together many of the loose ends of previous capacity in a beautifully written conclusion. His commentary is thoughtful, and—more than chiefly—thought provoking. He definitely toes the line with his loosely disguised criticisms of America, specially with regard to the terrorist attacks of September xi, 2001. However, even while criticizing the results of the United States' history of interventionism, Westad strikes a residuum past attesting to the good intentions with which such policies were carried out.
In the concluding chapter, Westad talks about how terrorist attacks and terrorist cells' struggle to proceeds authority seems to exist a natural resultant of the Cold War. In this sense, it seems as though he believes the effects of the Cold War are yet felt throughout the earth today. Westad'southward quintessential point is that the Cold State of war was not primarily nearly the two superpowers, but rather it had to practice with the "political and social development in the Third Earth" (p. 396). That being said, Westad recognizes 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Marriage as the terminate of the Cold War. However it is hard to read his works without feeling somewhat convinced that Westad believes the earth is notwithstanding in a cold war, if not the Cold State of war.
His ultimate conclusion is "that unilateral military intervention does not work to anyone's advantage, while open borders, cultural interactions, and off-white economical substitution benefit all" (p. 406). While the earth may be a long means away from instituting fair trade and respectful cultural relations between races and nations, Westad firmly backs up the get-go half of his conclusion: the superpowers' armed forces interventions during the Cold War truly played to no nation's benefit.
The Global Common cold War is certainly an eye-opening volume. It systematically deconstructs many preconceived notions readers might have virtually the Cold War, and replaces them with a more worldly understanding of modern history. However, the volume can at times be a quite difficult read due to Westad'south geographical separation of events. In his separate analyses of intervention in different areas of the world, Westad often leaves the reader with an incomplete frame of reference. For those readers who are not Cold War historians, the volume sometimes reads like a puzzle, where each chapter is an entity in and of itself, but cannot be understood to its fullest meaning until the completion of the unabridged book. The book in its entirety contains all of the necessary information for an educated reader to understand Westad'due south thesis, but the sequencing of that information sometimes makes it hard to comprehend.
To his credit, though, Westad partially overcomes this problem with his stiff decision. The concluding affiliate welds together the previous ten chapters, allowing the reader to capeesh the volume'southward general focus, even if some specifics remain muddled. Notwithstanding, I would not personally recommend this book to readers who exercise not already have a solid agreement of the Common cold State of war and at least a general noesis of world history of the past 50 years. Other than the start two chapters and the final chapter, The Global Cold War reads much like a textbook. While this is a positive aspect in the sense that Westad is able to exist phenomenally educational in his writing, the complex topic of his book makes information technology appropriate only for the educated reader.
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Citation: Joel Ribnick. Review of Westad, Odd Arne, The Global Cold War: Third Earth Interventions and the Making of Our Times. H-Soz-u-Kult, H-Cyberspace Reviews. Apr, 2008.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=21432
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