COLD WAR

The story of global events as the end of the World War Two tipped countries into a fight for independence. Major power struggles emerged from six years of conflict to recruit uncommitted nations to ideological causes. Tensions between East and West alliances brought by political differences led to a scramble for intelligence information and military supremacy. Secrecy, intrigue, and overt and covert activities fuelled escalating confrontations and several times the world stood on the brink of conflict. Espionage and covert spy operations are dealt with in addition to the evolution of defence strategies and conflict management.

With a background in the aviation and space industry, working with companies and government organisations in the UK and the USA, David Baker has made a lifelong study of aeronautical and aerospace projects to inform his research into the men and the machines of flight and flying. He has written more than 100 books and since the 1990s has served as editor for Horizon, the house magazine for Smiths Industries, for Janes Information Group on two yearbooks, on Aviation News and on SpaceFlight, the monthly magazine of the British Interplanetary Society. David had experience working with NASA and managing his aerospace consulting company from offices in London and in Trenton, New Jersey, visiting many countries around the world to advise governments and organisations on aeronautical and aerospace programmes.

In the 1980s, David was made a voting member of the International Academy of Astronautics and received the 1998 Rolls-Royce Award for the ‘Best Propulsion Submission’, a category within the RAeS Aerospace Journalist of the Year awards. He is also the recipient of the Arthur C Clarke Award and of the American Astronautical Society’s Frederick I Ordway III award for ‘sustained excellence in space coverage, through books and articles, as well as engagement in the early US space program’, presented at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. David lives with his wife Ann in East Sussex.