The Colder War: How the Global Energy Trade Slipped from America's Grasp

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A phenomenal book that is a must read. It clearly describes the coming of the new age; the sunset of the petrodollar and the decline of the hegemony of the empire of the age, the United States of America. The love-hate relationship between the MI-6 and CIA is an interesting dimension. Cumming knows his stuff well. While I liked the study into the character of Tom Kell and some others, there were a number of things that I found hard to believe: his blind trust of Amelia Levine, who continued manipulating him through out; hardly any development before Kell engaged in a steamy romance with a much younger woman, who's 'love at first sight' with him was rather unconvincing, too. Similarly unconvincing was the psychological portrait of the traitor, which the author tried to distill from a fifth-graders dialogue between a group of spy masters. Finally, a lot of 'telling' by the author, either through dialogues or additional description, felt rather patronizing and redundant. To be honest, I preferred the other book for its deep dives into various political movements and moments, and its heavy application of political theory and ideological analysis to events. The Cold War approaches the subject in more general terms, focusing on the interrelations of events, rather than their internal dynamics.

From a Bancroft Prize-winning scholar, a new global history of the Cold War and its ongoing impact around the world With an attempt to describe and explain events over more than half a century of modern history, it is no surprise that this book leaves me with an aching head a sense of the messy complexity of the recent past. But in some sense I find that reassuring. I knew nothing about the Cold War before reading this book, and if I came away from it feeling like I understood it, I would probably have arrived at the wrong approach and incorrect conclusions. This account is massive but it covers everything from Marx through to Yeltsin and hints at Russia today and missed opportunities that could’ve come out of the Cold War. He's still dangerous, but it's impossible to counter the danger if you don't know what it is. And you can't know what it is if you don't understand what Putin's trying to do. That describes most Americans, whether in or out of politics. Where the book is particularly strong is in tracing the roots of the Cold War to ideological conflicts that date from the late C19th. It also does it's best to live up to the sub-title, often focusing on powers other than the USSR and the USA. So for example it is strong on the de-stabilizing role of China, and how regional conflicts actually sometimes arose with relatively little interference from the great powers - Argentina and Brazil being a case in point. To the extent that I was familiar with such events, or that they were reported in the UK, relatively little importance would have been placed on local agency with the emphasis on intervention by one, or both, of the great powers.

One does feel sad for Gorbachev and how under-appreciated he was by his own people. For a Communist leader, Glasnost and perestroika were extremely liberal initiatives with the good intent of providing more freedom and a better quality of life for the people of USSR Perhaps the most surprising interpretation in the book is the world-historical centrality it assigns to the Portuguese Revolution of 1974, not a moment normally treated as one of the hinges of history. But, according to Westad, the Portuguese rejection of Salazar had two signal effects. The strongest aspect of this book is in its discussion of the triangle of the US-USSR-Sino relations, as Westad continually discusses that complex, evolving relationship.

Why did the Cold War end when it did? Few questions have generated more heated debate over the course of the last three decades. Archie Brown, one of the foremost experts on the subject, shows why the popular view that Western economic and military strength left the Soviet Union with no alternative but to admit defeat is erroneous. The main character is Thomas Kell, who has appeared before in the author's A Foreign Country and is an experienced and well regarded but tainted SIS senior operative, who is languishing outside the service on unpaid leave and trying to find a return route to his profession after some adventures in the aforementioned book.Yale, Οντ Άρνε Βέσταντ με τίτλο Ο ψυχρός πόλεμος – Μια παγκόσμια ιστορία (μτφρ. Δέσποινα Κωνσταντινάκου, εκδ. Πατάκη). Ο Βέσταντ εστιάζει στις συνέπειες του φαινομένου και σε όλα τα γεγονότα, τα οποία αποτέλεσαν μέρος του, όχι μόνο στην Ευρώπη αλλά σε όλον τον κόσμο. Το συμπέρασμα είναι ότι ο Ψυχρός Πόλεμος υπήρξε ένα γεγονός μεγίστης σημασίας με συνέπειες που είχαν τεράστια επιρροή σε πολλές χώρες και οι οποίες καθίστανται ανιχνεύσιμες μέχρι και σήμερα. This was a Spy Thriller. I liked Kell, the MC. He is a solid normal guy who isn't portrayed as a god, which is often a common portrayal in this genre.

Flowers through Concretetakes readers on a journey into a world few knew existed: the lives and thoughts of Soviet hippies, who in the face of disapproval and repression created a version of Western counterculture, skilfully adapting, manipulating, and shaping it to their late socialist environment. As a quasi-guide into the underground hippieland, readers are situated in the world of hippies firmly in late Soviet reality and are offered an unusual history of the last Soviet decades as well as a case study in the power of transnational youth cultures. News from Moscowis a social and cultural history of Soviet journalism after World War II. Focusing on the youth newspaper Komsomol’skaia Pravda, the study draws on transcripts of behind-the-scenes editorial meetings to chart the changing professional ethos of the Soviet journalist. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, some in the West foolishly proclaimed “victory” while others believed that now the world could embark on a truly peaceful future. However, since the fundamental causes of the Cold War – indeed, of all of the conflicts of the bloody 20th century – remain little understood and, therefore, unresolved, it is hardly surprising that we find ourselves in the second decade of the 21st century once again in a time of rising inter-state tensions aggravated by extreme nationalists. Instead of building bridges, or reinforcing those that exist, far too many seem determined to blow them up once again. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to questions from a live audience and those submitted by text, electronic mail, telephone, and…Read a free chapter: Introduction: Reformers and Propagandists 5. The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold Warby Archie Brown Flawed hero in the middle book of three. Lots of action and suspense along with what the author calls "trade craft"--how spies go about their business. Personally had a problem with Kell's sudden and obsessive romance with a younger woman, but perhaps that's just part of his flawed character. That and his relationship with Amelia, his manipulative boss. Stalin had refused to agree to North Korea’s wish to invade South Korea, what Westad calls “an entirely avoidable war” which “devastated a country and enchained a people” might not have happened; A Colder War, adalah novel spionase menawan yang menyelidiki dunia gelap operasi intelijen & jaringan rumit politik global. Bersetting di era pasca Perang Dingin, cerita ini mengikuti mantan perwira MI6 yang kecewa, Thomas Kell, ketika dia enggan kembali ke dunia spionase untuk mengungkap mata-mata di balik badan tersebut. Dalam novel ini kita akan melihat bagaimana penulis mendeskripsikan detail cara kerja badan intelijen yang kian menambah keaslian pada narasinya. Lalu, dengan seiring perkembangan karakter multidimensinya, kita akan melihat sisi kehidupan pribadi masing-masing karakter di tengah-tengah spionase.

US president FDR had lived into the post-war era so that he could have continued to develop his relationship with Soviet leader Stalin in implementing their wartime agreements; Though the author doesn't get into the ideological drivers in much detail, the reader is apprised of significant global developments during the Cold War era. From the creation of the Iron Curtain between East and Western Europe to the role of China and everything in between the facts are laid bare.US president John Kennedy had not been murdered and, instead, continued to build upon the effort begun with Soviet leader Khrushchev towards limiting the nuclear arms race and beginning disarmament, the subsequent relationship between the United States and Russia might have evolved into a workable partnership. New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird edited by Paula Guran". Prime Books. Archived from the original on 7 October 2011 . Retrieved 30 August 2011. Over the past few years, I have followed the odd stories on Rosneft, Gazprom, Ukraine, Georgia etc. This book does a comprehensive job in joining the dots highlighting an undeniable and cogent rationale behind Russian involvement in all what I have read thus far. Nonetheless, for all of the missteps and misjudgments – and there were many by all involved – major disasters were somehow avoided. This is all the more amazing because the Soviet Union, the United States and China all had significant internal destabilization at some point during these long years: within Russia it was the period of “de-Stalinization,” when Khrushchev attempted to undo many of the excesses embraced by Stalin during his long rule; in the US, the hysteria of the “Red scare” of the ‘40s and ‘50s was soon followed by domestic unrest resulting from the civil rights movement and the country’s deepening involvement in the unpopular war in Viet Nam; and in China Mao struggled with the Olympian task of rapidly bringing his poor and rural country into the modern age. Book Genre: Business, Cultural, Economics, Finance, History, Nonfiction, Political Science, Politics, Russia