scholarly journals The Cold War and Third World revolution

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-57
Author(s):  
Robert P. Hager

Much of the Cold War took place in the Third World. The three works authored by Gregg A. Brazinsky, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry During the Cold War; Jeffry James Byrne, Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order; and Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World, are reviewed here and they provide historical details. A consistent theme that emerges is the importance of ideological factors in driving the events are discussed. It is also clear that the Third World states were not passive objects of pressure from great powers but had agendas of their own. These books provide useful material for theorists of international relations and policy makers.

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Kalter

AbstractIn the second half of the twentieth century, the transnational ‘Third World’ concept defined how people all over the globe perceived the world. This article explains the concept’s extraordinary traction by looking at the interplay of local uses and global contexts through which it emerged. Focusing on the particularly relevant setting of France, it examines the term’s invention in the context of the Cold War, development thinking, and decolonization. It then analyses the reviewPartisans(founded in 1961), which galvanized a new radical left in France and provided a platform for a communication about, but also with, the Third World. Finally, it shows how the association Cedetim (founded in 1967) addressed migrant workers in France as ‘the Third World at home’. In tracing the Third World’s local–global dynamics, this article suggests a praxis-oriented approach that goes beyond famous thinkers and texts and incorporates ‘lesser’ intellectuals and non-textual aspects into a global conceptual history in action.


Author(s):  
Robert J. McMahon

‘Cold wars at home’ highlights the domestic repercussions of the Cold War. The Cold War exerted so profound and so multi-faceted an impact on the structure of international politics and state-to-state relations that it has become customary to label the 1945–90 period ‘the Cold War era’. That designation becomes even more fitting when one considers the powerful mark that the Soviet–American struggle for world dominance and ideological supremacy left within many of the world’s nation-states. The Cold War of course affected the internal constellation of forces in the Third World, Europe, and the United States and impacted the process of decolonization, state formation, and Cold War geopolitics.


Author(s):  
Richard Saull

This chapter offers a theoretically informed overview of American foreign policy during the Cold War. It covers the main historical developments in U.S. policy: from the breakdown of the wartime alliance with the USSR and the emergence of the US–Soviet diplomatic hostility and geopolitical confrontation,to U.S. military interventions in the third world and the U.S. role in the ending of the Cold War. The chapter begins with a discussion of three main theoretical approaches to American foreign policy during the Cold War: realism, ideational approaches, and socio-economic approaches. It then considers the origins of the Cold War and containment of the Soviet Union, focusing on the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. It also examines the militarization of U.S. foreign policy with reference to the Korean War, Cold War in the third world, and the role of American foreign policy in the ending of the Cold War.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document