Senior Library Books
Resource Key
LEVEL 1
brief, basic information laid out in an easy-to-read format. May use informal language. (Includes most news articles)
LEVEL 2
provides additional background information and further reading. Introduces some subject-specific language.
LEVEL 3
lengthy, detailed information. Frequently uses technical/subject-specific language. (Includes most analytical articles)
Britannica Links
- Cold war Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons.
- Communism Communism, the political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates.
- Warsaw Pact Warsaw Pact, formally Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, (May 14, 1955–July 1, 1991) treaty establishing a mutual-defense organization (Warsaw Treaty Organization) composed originally of the Soviet Union and Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. (Albania withdrew in 1968, and East Germany did so in 1990.) The treaty (which was renewed on April 26, 1985) provided for a unified military command and for the maintenance of Soviet military units on the territories of the other participating states.
- Mutual assured destruction In the event, technological developments supported the second strike. Initially, long-range bombers had to be kept on continual alert to prevent them from being eliminated in a surprise attack. When ICBMs moved into full production in the early 1960s with such systems as the U.S. Titan and Minuteman I and the Soviet SS-7 and SS-8, they were placed in hardened underground silos so that it would require an unlikely direct hit to destroy them.
- North Atlantic Treaty Organization North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the Washington Treaty) of April 4, 1949, which sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after World War II.
- Marshall Plan Marshall Plan, formally European Recovery Program, (April 1948–December 1951), U.S.-sponsored program designed to rehabilitate the economies of 17 western and southern European countries in order to create stable conditions in which democratic institutions could survive.
Linked Databases
- Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre Plus This link opens in a new window
This resource provides the largest collection of full text from leading regional and international newspapers and periodicals, full-text reference books, tens of thousands of full-text biographies, and a collection of images containing more than one million photos, maps, and flags.
Introduction
The Cold War was the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons.
Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945 near the close of World War II, the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel. By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. The Americans and the British feared the permanent Soviet domination of eastern Europe and the threat of Soviet-influenced communist parties coming to power in the democracies of western Europe. The Soviets, on the other hand, were determined to maintain control of eastern Europe in order to safeguard against any possible renewed threat from Germany, and they were intent on spreading communism worldwide, largely for ideological reasons. The Cold War had solidified by 1947–48, when U.S. aid provided under the Marshall Plan to western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in eastern Europe. (Britannica, 2015)
The Cold War: Crash Course US History #37
CrashCourse. (2013, November 8). The cold war: Crash Course US History #37 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C72ISMF_D0
Collections
- Cold War. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://apps.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/focuson/film/film-archive/archive.asp?catID=3&subCatID=3
British National Archives Focus on Film site. Contains a variety of short news clips (primary sources) relating to the Cold War along with contextual information. - Collections. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collections?mode=list
Wilson Center Digital Archive. Collections contain selected sets of historical (primary) documents related to a specific topic, region, or event. Relevant collections include: Polish and Hungarian Crises, Berlin Wall, Cold War Origins, East German Uprising, Economic Cold War, End of the Cold War, Euromissiles Crisis, Intelligence Operations in the Cold War, Mass Media and Censorship, Mitrokhin Archive, Nikita Khrushchev Collection, Nuclear Proliferation, Post-Stalin Succession Struggle, Soviet Foreign Policy, Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet Nuclear History, Stalin and the Cold War, The Algerian Revolution and the Communist Bloc, United States-Soviet Relations, Warsaw Pact. - The Cold War Museum. (n.d.). The 40s. Retrieved from http://www.coldwar.org/articles/40s/index.aspFrom the 1940s until the 1990s the rivalry between the democratic Free World and the nations of the Communist bloc affected Americans' daily lives and events throughout the world. This “Cold War” actually became a “hot” one in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War but generally took the form of espionage and diplomatic maneuvers, with the United States, the Soviet Union and China as the major combatants. The Cold War Museum seeks to memorialize the people and events of those years and educate future generations about that era.
- Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe. (2016). About the CVCE. Retrieved from http://www.cvce.eu/en/cvce/presentationThe CVCE builds an integrated subject-specific digital research infrastructure for European integration studies (CVCE.eu) with the mission to contribute to an enriched understanding of European integration in its past, present and future dimensions. The CVCE.eu research infrastructure includes publications, data, tools, services, skills and networks.
- Mount Holyoke College. (n.d.). Documents relating to American foreign policy: The Cold War. Retrieved from https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/coldwar.htmPrimary documents and links relating to American Foreign Policy.
- Miller Center. (2016). Primary resources: The Cold War. Retrieved from http://millercenter.org/academic/dgs/primaryresources/cold_warCollection of links to sites containing primary documents relating to the Cold War.
