Encyclopedia of the Cold War

Hundreds of entries identify key people, ideas, events, and organizations during the fifty-year Cold War period

Arms, a British journalist who currently edits and publishes the Future Events Newsletter, has produced a truly out-standing reference work on the Cold War, including every event, place, and person associated with that period's long history. Alphabetically arranged entries range in length from 500 to 1500 words, depending on the significance of the subject. All major (and many minor) players are covered, and explanations are given of important events like the Cuban Missile Crisis or major organizations like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Every American president from Franklin Delano Roosevelt through George Bush, along with their secretaries of state, enjoy lengthy essays. Similar coverage exists for foreign leaders such as Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Each entry concludes with a brief bibliography, and the Encyclopedia also contains a more general listing of significant Cold War secondary works at the end of the text. This very important reference work is highly recommended for all libraries.
Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although it is still too recent for a totally reasoned and balanced final report, the ending of the Cold War brings the need to document its ramifications, to bring into one place the people and events that made up its many parts, from its beginning in 1945 or thereabouts to its end with the breakup of the Soviet Union. As the introduction to this volume puts it, "The Cold War ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. . . . its flame was . . . extinguished by the winds of change."

Encyclopedia of the Cold War provides in an alphabetical arrangement the people, places, and events of this period. Major and minor figures on both sides are found; lives are sketched briefly, with the emphasis on their part in the Cold War. Entries range from less than one-half page to more than three pages and include many internal cross-references using small-capital letters. Most entries have reading lists appended for further information. Included are such world-famous names as Tito, Stalin, Francis Gary Powers, Salvador Allende, Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher and such lesser-known persons as Theodore Streibert, first director of the U.S. Information Agency, and Vernon Walters, "soldier, intelligence officer and diplomat." Topics discussed range from Yalta, Bay of Pigs, Pugwash Conference, and Pueblo Incident to Aswan High Dam, Alliance for Progress, Loyalty Review Boards, and Window of Vulnerability. Country entries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, and Ghana discuss their relevance to and activities in the Cold War. More than 60 black-and-white photographs are included. Many, but not all, of the titles from the brief bibliographies appended to the entries are repeated in a final bibliography divided into broad areas, primarily geographic, (e.g., Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. and Canada) but also topical (Espionage, Nuclear Issues, etc.). While there are a few see references in the text (e.g., Nosenko, Yuri--see Angleton, James Jesus), an index provides access to many more items not found as separate entries.

A recent three-volume work, The Cold War, 1945-1991 [RBB Ag 93], includes only about one-half the total number of articles as this encyclopedia. They are generally longer with more illustrations and similar bibliographies, but as they are divided into two separate volumes of biography, Western and Soviet, and an additional volume by topic, the set is more cumbersome to use and to follow cross-references. It does, however, include a couple of special features not found here: a detailed chronology, a longer narrative history, and a list of archives. Each title has entries not found in the other, so they are to some extent complementary. Encyclopedia of the Cold War has slightly smaller print and less white space but could be used by high school libraries as well as academic and public libraries. Encyclopedia of the Cold War will be a welcome addition to reference collections, especially those that did not purchase The Cold War.