The Causes of the Cold War (The Cold War) - Softcover

Gr. 5-8. These books in the well-designed Cold War set do an excellent job of explanation and context setting. Causes, as its name implies, explains what the cold war was and how it affected its participants. It begins with colliding ideologies of democracy and communism and shows how the cold war came out of the very hot World War II. Moving chronologically, the book covers all the important post-war events, the advance of communism, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and standoffs between the U.S and the USSR around the world. The book is excellent background for Cuban Missile and Vietnam, which both touch on some of the same material, but also focus on the hows and whys of the conflicts. End shows the dissolution of communism and the emergence of hopeful new nations. All the books do extremely well at introducing the chief players of the times, and how their personalities influenced events. Color and black-and-white photographs enliven the texts; maps and sidebars are in color, too. A time line and a glossary round out each volume in these solid and thought-provoking books.