Talk1946
The Sinews of Peace
Winston Churchill
Declares that an 'iron curtain' has descended across Europe and argues that only continued Anglo-American unity can check further Soviet expansion.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry
The Cold War
Forty-five years of confrontation without direct war between the principals.
13 topics · 13 curated works
Topics
- 01Foundations & Overviews1
- 02Origins of the Cold War1
- 03Containment Policy1
- 04The Marshall Plan1
- 05The Berlin Blockade & Wall1
- 06The Korean War1
- 07The Cuban Missile Crisis1
- 08The Vietnam War1
- 09Nuclear Arms Race1
- 10Proxy Conflicts1
- 11The Space Race (Historical)1
- 12Détente1
- 13Soviet Collapse1
Reading in The Cold War
13A way in
Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
The Sinews of Peace
Winston Churchill · 1946
Declares that an 'iron curtain' has descended across Europe and argues that only continued Anglo-American unity can check further Soviet expansion.
+3 more at this level
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury
Loyd S. Swenson Jr., James M. Grimwood & Charles C. Alexander · 1966
NASA's own official history, arguing America's first human spaceflight programme succeeded despite enormous technical improvisation, driven…
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
The Sources of Soviet Conduct
George F. Kennan · 1947
Argues Soviet expansionism is driven by an entrenched ideological need for external enemies, so patient long-term containment will eventually force…
+7 more at this level
12 of 13 works
Talk1947
The Marshall Plan Speech
George C. Marshall
Argues European economic collapse, not communist subversion, is the immediate danger, and that only large-scale American-funded reconstruction can restore a functioning continent.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry
Talk1963
Ich bin ein Berliner
John F. Kennedy
Argues West Berlin's survival under blockade and division is a direct test of the West's resolve, making the divided city the front line of the whole Cold War.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry
Book2005
The Cold War: A New History
John Lewis Gaddis
Argues that the Cold War stayed cold because nuclear weapons made victory meaningless to both sides, and that it ended when the Soviet system lost the argument rather than the arms race.
PaidEntry
Report1966
This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury
Loyd S. Swenson Jr., James M. Grimwood & Charles C. Alexander
NASA's own official history, arguing America's first human spaceflight programme succeeded despite enormous technical improvisation, driven throughout by the political pressure of Soviet firsts.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Essay1947
The Sources of Soviet Conduct
George F. Kennan
Argues Soviet expansionism is driven by an entrenched ideological need for external enemies, so patient long-term containment will eventually force it to retreat without direct war.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Report1950
United States Objectives and Programs for National Security
United States National Security Council
Argues the Soviet threat requires a massive, sustained U.S. military and nuclear buildup rather than reliance on the atomic monopoly or diplomacy alone, setting Cold War defence spending on a new trajectory.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Report1961
South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu
Roy E. Appleman
The official U.S. Army history of the war's first year, arguing American and South Korean forces were badly unprepared and repeatedly outmanoeuvred until the Inchon landing reversed the campaign.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Report1971
Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force
United States Department of Defense
The Pentagon's own classified history of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam, showing successive administrations expanded the war while privately doubting it could be won — leaked to the press in 1971, its publication becoming a landmark press-freedom case in its own right.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Book1971
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis
Graham Allison
Argues a single 'rational actor' model cannot explain the crisis, and proposes organisational routines and bureaucratic politics as equally necessary explanations for what each government actually did.
PaidAdvanced
Book1985
Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan
Raymond L. Garthoff
Argues détente collapsed because Washington and Moscow never agreed on what it meant, each reading the same relaxation of tension as licence to keep competing by other means.
PaidAdvanced
Book2005
The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times
Odd Arne Westad
Argues the Cold War was fought most consequentially not in Europe but through interventions in the Third World, which both superpowers treated as an ideological battleground for their competing visions of modernity.
PaidAdvanced
In order written
1946 – 2010- 1946The Sinews of PeaceWinston Churchill
- 1947The Marshall Plan SpeechGeorge C. Marshall
- 1947The Sources of Soviet ConductGeorge F. Kennan
- 1950United States Objectives and Programs for National SecurityUnited States National Security Council
- 1961South to the Naktong, North to the YaluRoy E. Appleman
- 1963Ich bin ein BerlinerJohn F. Kennedy
- 1966This New Ocean: A History of Project MercuryLoyd S. Swenson Jr., James M. Grimwood & Charles C. Alexander
- 1971Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task ForceUnited States Department of Defense
- 1971Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile CrisisGraham Allison
- 1985Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to ReaganRaymond L. Garthoff
- 2005The Cold War: A New HistoryJohn Lewis Gaddis
- 2005The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our TimesOdd Arne Westad
- 2010Masterpieces of History: The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe, 1989Svetlana Savranskaya, Thomas Blanton & Vladislav Zubok