Consisting of 34 essays by an equal number of scholarly experts from around the globe, The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War should prove an invaluable resource for specialists and students alike. The essays explore a wide range of topics. Eschewing a standard chronological approach, editors Richard H. Immerman and Petra Goedde have organized the volume around geographical and thematic topics. Every major region of the world is covered, as is almost every conceivable topic—from the standard ones (geopolitics, economics, the nuclear revolution) to those that have become fashionable more recently (race, gender and women's rights, the environment, transnationalism, globalization, and the religious Cold War, among them).
One of the book's many strengths is that the contributors do not speak with a single voice. Rather, they represent a diversity of viewpoints and perspectives, including an opening essay by Akira Iriye that takes a contrarian stance, arguing for the relative unimportance...