This book represents the sixth volume on aspects of the Cold War put out by the Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung. Known in the past for its controversial traveling exhibit of war crimes committed by the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern front during World War II, the Hamburg Institute nowadays is fishing in less troubled waters.
The 27 essays on various aspects of the Cold War and their legacies in the post–Cold War world, mostly by scholars on the political left, are consistently thoughtful. Some essays are sparkling, but several lack focus in a volume that otherwise is clearly structured. Each of the chapters addresses prominent Cold War policies and ideas that continued largely unabated in the years after the East-West conflict. The book is well arranged in four larger thematic sections. Not all chapters clearly address the issue of the 1989 divide, showing how (or whether) Cold War practices and...