“A tour de force of investigative history.” —Steve Coll

The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.
The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill. In the last half of the...

An award-winning documentary about the original performer-president's role of a lifetime. Teasing apart the spectacle at the heart of finger-on-the-button global diplomacy, the film follows Ronald Reagan's rivalry with charismatic Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Chock full of wit and political irony, and told solely through 1980s network news and videotapes created by the Reagan administration itself, THE REAGAN SHOW explores Reagan's made-for-TV...

The full scope of George Kennan's long life and vast influence is revealed by one of today's most important Cold War scholars. Yale historian Gaddis began this magisterial history almost 30 years ago; the result is a remarkably revealing view of how this greatest of Cold War strategists came to doubt his strategy and always doubted himself.

"The Cold War dominated international life from the end of the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall. But how did the dispute begin, and why did it move from its origins in post-war Europe to encompass virtually every corner of the globe? Robert J. McMahon considers these questions and more, providing a truly international history of the Cold War and examining its enduring legacy. He draws on the most recent scholarship and documents to...

"As World War II comes to a close, the United States and the Soviet Union emerge as the two greatest world powers on extreme opposites of the political spectrum. After the United States showed its hand with the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, the Soviets refuse to be left behind. With communism sweeping the globe, the two nations begin a neck-and-neck competition to build even more destructive bombs and conquer the Space Race. In their battle for dominance,...