I want to learn anything and everything about the Cold War.
How it got started.
Who it involved.
How long it lasted.
What it was over.
And why exactly it is the closest humanity has ever come to extinction; and the entire myriad of circumstances that came together to prevent that from happening (which has been said to be tantamount to playing Russian roulette 13 times in a row and winning).
Where do I get started?
It isn't over. Ask yourself, where are the Nuclear Weapons?
Extinction was never really plausible.
A billion or so deaths, more plausible.
>How it got started.
>Who it involved.
>How long it lasted.
>What it was over.
>And why exactly it is the closest humanity has ever come to extinction; and the entire myriad of circumstances that came together to prevent that from happening (which has been said to be tantamount to playing Russian roulette 13 times in a row and winning).
You can read all that stuff on Cold War wikipedia page you fucking idiot
>It isn't over.
It's over. The Russians lost and Eastern Europe was liberated after half a century of occupation.
The Russians are going to cling hard onto every vestige of relevance, despite having the economy of Italy.
Extinction is far too strectched, but certainly most people feared that SHTF.
Million, not billions ok
>Extinction was never really plausible.
>what is nuclear winter
>what is the ozone layer
Literally all it would take for humans to not go extinct is one couple with a bunker and some food.
He's () right user. I noah guy who did that but instead of a bunker he used a ship.
The world would be a better place if the Soviet Union had won.
goddamn, how many strategic subs do we have?
The closest we ever came to extinction was about 400,000 years ago during a time of massive environmental turmoil, IIRC.
All humans are descended from the 5,000 or so individuals that survived that time.
Here's the Cold War bibliography:
The Fallout series is an exaggeration of what would occur.
It would require nearly every nuclear weapon at the height of the 80's to be used to even come close to that.
Humans would live in a shitty 1800's place.
>muh nominal
>I want to learn anything and everything about the Cold War.
THE COLD WAR - BBC - COMPLETE SERIES: youtube.com
I really like this one, they actualy managed to get most of the important people still alive for Interviews, so you also get the Russian perspective
source on that?
>How it got started
WWII ends, FDR dies, Churchill and Stalin divide Europe (see percentages agreement or something like that), Truman and U.S. gov are saying muh free world
>Who it involved.
At first East vs. West, then the non-aligned world and China
>How long it lasted.
1945-1991
>What it was over.
at first ideology, later concerns of U.S. influence too close to home (see Korea, Vietnam) then things chilled out thanks to Detente, then with the return of the right wing in the UK and US with Thatcher and Reagan so things heated up again
>And why exactly it is the closest humanity has ever come to extinction; and the entire myriad of circumstances that came together to prevent that from happening (which has been said to be tantamount to playing Russian roulette 13 times in a row and winning).
I mean, the closest we ever did was the Cuban Missile crisis, Nuclear holocaust was averted cause JFK and the USSR were too fucking scared of the consequences
>Where do I get started?
Read a history book, just got done taking a history class precisely on the cold war, there are other interesting aspects to it such as the fall of apartheid coinciding with the fall of the USSR, The end of Detente, Soviet fears of radical islam, people thinking that all would be peace and happiness once the cold war was over, then shit begins to happen circa 1995-2005
Today's world is much a result of the cold war too, also, ronald Reagan fucked shit up real hard famaland
>then the non-aligned world and China
?
>Cold
>War
>muh end of history
Was anyone more wrong than Fukuyama?
non-aligned world?
thats countries that choose not to fall under the umbrella of the western allies and the U.S. or the U.S.S.R.
countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Yugoslavia, India, China
look up the Bandung conference
this is also really fucking important, the Cold War was only Cold in the U.S. and the USSR and a couple of other countries, it was fucking hot in Hungary, hot in, Czechoslovakia, hot in Korea, hot in SE Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Probably the hottest in the Middle East.
The Cold War is an odd one, mostly because it is not defined by battles, but by ideological conflict. After the use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. at the end of WWII, it became apparent that whichever country could maintain the greatest threat of them would stand as the dominant power in the world. Since the axis powers were in no position to pose a threat anymore, it was Russia that held the most potential in developing such a rivalry, as they still (despite having lost the most soldiers of all countries throughout WWII) held vast amounts of resources, and possessed a great nationalistic culture of communism. As the increase of American globalization, coupled with an emboldened post-war pride, enabled the U.S. to vastly increase their economic influence and consolidate their country's development in science and technology, Russia utilized the power of its people to research and develop its own technology. The opposition of these cultures became defined by their relative differences in theology (this was when the U.S. added "under god" to the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" to its money), and the desire to outdo one another drove each country toward massive levels of growth. However, since the aftermath of the holocaust had sent a chilling message to the rest of world about what can result from trying to conquer people, both countries began to focus on the next logical step in colonization: space. Development of shuttles that flew higher and faster drove the "space race," and after Russia sent a man into orbit, America decided it was necessary to place one one the moon. Meanwhile, tensions between these countries galvanized each one, and the looming threat of nuclear war was only mitigated by the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction, as either country's aggression would only result in direct and utter retaliation, thus ensuring the destruction of both parties.
this is a narrow minded, 10th grade american textbook definition of the cold war.
Sure, what you say is true, but there is so much more to it, things how the USSR perhaps stopped giving a fuck about the eastern bloc and hence didn't care when eastern European countries started passing reform. or hell, just the whole of Detente
> The Russians are going to cling hard onto every vestige of relevance
Doesn't means that there is some sort of the cold war because modern Russia aren't influential for a proxy wars going rampant all around the worlds. If anything we are back to average geopolitical mess of countries trying to shit on each other now. Most ideological driven conflict is gone by today.
>one couple
Unsustainable population desu
Yeah, it's missing a lot of details. It's a broad summation (like what OP was asking for), and therefore an attempt to capture the most central concepts rather than delve into the deep complexities, or attempt to paint either participant as morally superior. Narrow-minded and sophomoric would be lashing out reflexively at someone instead of just filling in the gaps, if you think something is being overlooked.
The thing is that I believe we ought to move away from a view of the cold war as just "US VS USSR, LOTS OF NUKES". China is probably just as important, especially once they get nukes, The middle east is just as important, the Europe after the '68 is just as important.
>since the aftermath of the holocaust had sent a chilling message to the rest of world about what can result from trying to conquer people, both countries began to focus on the next logical step in colonization: space
Wow, this is some fantastically retarded idealism. Do you have any idea 10s of millions died during the Cold War, and the largest bombing campaigns in military history happened then?
also Let's not forget the Support to every Strongman or terrorgroup no matter how crazy as long as they are against communism/capitalism during the Cold War... that shit is responsible for most of our Problems today
>How it got started.
No one liked Commies except other commies
>Who it involved.
Everyone
>How long it lasted.
Until 1991/1992
>What it was over.
Not liking Commies/imperialism
>And why exactly it is the closest humanity has ever come to extinction
Nukes and mass mobilization + communication making such structures possible
>the entire myriad of circumstances that came together to prevent that from happening
Common humanity and negotiation
Okay, yeah. I know. I guess what you're saying is that attempting to actually reply to OP's question is so inherently impossible that one shouldn't even try. Fuck me.
en.m.wikipedia.org
>According to the genetic bottleneck theory, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, human populations sharply decreased to 3,000–10,000 surviving individuals.[36][37] It is supported by genetic evidence suggesting that today's humans are descended from a very small population of between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago.[38]
> Only off by about 330,000 years
>Additional caveats to the Toba-induced bottleneck theory include difficulties in estimating the global and regional climatic impacts of the eruption and lack of conclusive evidence for the eruption preceding the bottleneck.[47] Furthermore, genetic analysis of Alu sequences across the entire human genome has shown that the effective human population size was less than 26,000 at 1.2 million years ago; possible explanations for the low population size of human ancestors may include repeated population bottlenecks or periodic replacement events from competing Homo subspecies.[48]
Touche.
For someone who is just getting into the Cold War period, how are the "Cambridge History of the Cold War" collection as books?
I used a book call "One World Divisible" pretty good 8/10 1945 to 2000 or so
> It's over. The Russians lost
Soviets lost.
> Eastern Europe was liberated after half a century of occupation.
Eastern Europe here. Go fuck yourself with a brick.
> >How it got started
> WWII ends, FDR dies
> a contingent of about 5,000 United States Army troops that landed in Arkhangelsk, Russia as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and fought the Red Army in the surrounding region
It begun before WWI ended.
Really, really good. Edited volumes like that are nice because of the different styles of writing too.
OP here. Thanks for your resourceful comments.