For almost fifty years after World War II, the antagonism caused by two rival ideologies -- democracy and communism -- dominated international politics. Although by no means the only nations involved in this long conflict we call the call war, the democratic United States and the Communist Soviet Union were always at its center. These superpowers vied to surpass each other at controlling international affairs, stockpiling nuclear weapons, racing for the moon, and even at world chess and Olympic competitions. When the Soviet Union offically disbanded on Christmas day, 1991, forty-six years of open hostility between East and West finally came to an end. The cold war was over, but its effects remain.

What led the United States into such bitter rivalry with the USSR? What fed America's paranoia about communism? How did this obsessive fear come to dictate U.S. policy at home and abroad? In Cold War: The American Crusade Against Communism 1945-1991, James A. Warren examines these and other important questions. The first comprehensive study of the cold war published for yound adults since the dissolutions of the Soviet Union, Cold War takes a thoughtful look at where America has been and where we might be headed.