Cold War on Five Continents

A Global History of Empire and Espionage

Alfred W. McCoy

• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9798888904824
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A provocative analysis of the deadly Cold War conflicts that devastated countries and communities far from Moscow and Washington

Transforming battlegrounds in Africa, Asia, and Latin America into veritable hellscapes, the surrogate wars of the Cold War era left behind a legacy of collective trauma and social conflict that have persisted into the present. In this ambitious work, Alfred W. McCoy uses a bottom-up, outside-in approach to offer an unexpected new perspective on the longest, most consequential conflict in modern history.

McCoy renders an intimate portrait of both embattled covert operatives and committed antiwar protesters, thus humanizing the history of the Cold War—a history that has too often been told in impersonal terms of economic growth, nuclear arsenals, or diplomatic ententes.

As today's great powers devote humanity's scarce resources toward ratcheting up a "new cold war" in the face of a worsening climate crisis, McCoy's history is an important reminder that otherwise- ordinary individuals once helped end a global conflict that threatened nuclear holocaust.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1. The Cold War’s Long Shadow
• Part One: The Struggle Over Europe and Its Colonial Empires
• Part Two: One, Two, Many Vietnams
• Part Three: Surrogate Wars in the Third World
• Part Four: Close of the Cold War
• 16. Toward a New Cold War
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Men on the Spot, Cold War, 1946–91
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author