The End of the Cold War

Company

Library of Congress

Price

$9.99

Source

Official Store

On 26 December, 1991, the hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time. Yet, just six years earlier, when Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and chose Eduard Shevardnadze as his foreign minister, the Cold War seemed like a permanent fixture in world politics. Until its denouement, no Western or Soviet politician foresaw that the standoff between the two superpowers — after decades of struggle over every aspect of security, politics, economics, and ideas — would end within the lifetime of the current generation. Nor…