The Colder War: How the Global Energy Trade Slipped from America's Grasp

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Okay, confession time. Espionage novels really aren't my thing, but I was prepared to give this one a shot, firstly because I've never read any of the authors work before and secondly because it was chosen for the Richard and Judy Spring Book Club this year. I follow their recommendations religiously and 9 out of 10 times they get it right for my personal reading interests. Unfortunately this time, I was sorely disappointed. As the story begins, the chief of MI6, Amelia Levene, also known as "C," is having a terrible time. A few agents abroad in Greece, Turkey and the Middle East that have defected to working for the West have been killed and rumours are flying around that there is a mole within the service. To add to this, one of her British agents Paul Wallinger (whom she was having a long-standing affair with) has been killed in a light aircraft crash yet the manner of his death is arousing her suspicions. From a Bancroft Prize-winning scholar, a new global history of the Cold War and its ongoing impact around the world The good news here is that when Kell is on the case – which is much of the time - A Colder War is an enjoyable and engaging read. The down side is that the story-line does wander; for instance both the intro/set-up and conclusion are too long – and especially with Kell’s “personal” life. Putin not only had ambition, drive, and limitless self-confidence, he had a vision. A scholar of the reign of Peter the Great, he wanted nothing less than to elevate his country to a premier position among the nations of the world. Given Russia's condition when he took over, that seemed a ridiculous pipe dream to anyone who noticed. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, some in the West foolishly proclaimed “victory” while others believed that now the world could embark on a truly peaceful future. However, since the fundamental causes of the Cold War – indeed, of all of the conflicts of the bloody 20th century – remain little understood and, therefore, unresolved, it is hardly surprising that we find ourselves in the second decade of the 21st century once again in a time of rising inter-state tensions aggravated by extreme nationalists. Instead of building bridges, or reinforcing those that exist, far too many seem determined to blow them up once again.

From there on, the story goes every place you would wish it to, though without ever being predictable. The writing is economical and effective and I was held hanging the whole time - constantly trying to guess what was next. I was (nearly) always wrong. It’s a read it a little bit more, read it propped open with the jam jar at breakfast, read it on the bus and miss your stop, think about it all day, try to explain your theories underway, in Danish, to your Danish colleagues, good. Really. This is gonna be a hard act to follow and no mistake. But I think, on the evidence of this (and I have my own idea of how he can do it), Charles Cummings is the man to do it. Russia seems to be the good partner for the west: due to its resources on gas, uranium and oil. The USA should take heed of the “judgment day for the petrodollar”. Japan is about to return to nuclear power and Russia still holds half of the world production of uranium. Shute is an unfashionable writer now, but he was hugely popular in the 1950s and 60s. This 1957 novel, set in Australia, tells of the time after a global nuclear war. Week by week a radioactive cloud is sweeping southwards, bringing with it inevitable death. Slightly clunky, it would win no prizes for literary style – but its artlessness and proliferation of seemingly inconsequential detail somehow make this story of ordinary people waiting for extinction both credible and affecting. Among the many thoughts triggered by Westad’s narrative, some of the most provocative involve how the Cold War might very well have turned out very differently if only: Alex Guinness in the 1959 adaptation of Our Man in Havana, directed by Carol Reed. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/COLUMBIAThirdly, I do not fault the author's attention toward Putin, as a matter of fact, that was the most fascinating aspect to this book. Russia has always been a fascination to me as a student of history. Marin Katusa draws out details about the man which I was completely unaware of and sheds additional light on those aspects with which I am already familiar.

This is simply a must-read for anyone who wants a better understanding of the world today. Despite having lived through the Cold War -- and as someone who probably pays closer attention to current events, world politics, and history than your average American -- there was a lot here that I did already know but so much more that I did not.Europe’s struggle to achieve post-war stabilization was undermined by the Great Depression, even as Japan’s invasion of Manchuria exposed the powerlessness of the League of Nations. Less than 20 years after the ending of the first, an even more devastating world war created the immediate conditions from which the Cold War began: an exhausted Europe too enfeebled to hang on to its far-flung colonial ventures, the Soviet Union exercising de facto control over much of central and eastern Europe, and the ending of China’s long internal struggle with Mao’s defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek. Read a free chapter: Introduction 3. Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain: Youth and the Global Sixties in Polandby Malgorzata Fidelis Orwell takes his place at the head of this list as the first writer to use the term “cold war” in relation to geopolitical conditions immediately after the second world war (in You and the Atomic Bomb). Nineteen Eighty-Four remains the defining vision of totalitarian rule. It supplied us with a vocabulary we still use and is as relevant today as it was when Orwell wrote it. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”

A enjoyable and well constructed spy thriller from Charles Cumming with the story and action nicely paced but never too fast or loose to make it unbelievable. This is an ambitious work by the preeminent historian of the Global Cold War. Westad certainly touches on most of the countries that were affected by the Cold War, but his acceptance of the Cold War as a useful trope to evaluate the entire world is flawed. Indeed, Westad is one of the historians who has shown that the Cold War was anything but "cold." It was actually comprised of many "hot" wars. Portraying the conflict between the US and USSR as "cold" delegitimizes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people around the world and portrays them as pawns in a bigger game by white, European and American powers. To be honest, I preferred the other book for its deep dives into various political movements and moments, and its heavy application of political theory and ideological analysis to events. The Cold War approaches the subject in more general terms, focusing on the interrelations of events, rather than their internal dynamics. Marin Katusa is one of the leading experts on—and most successful portfolio managers in—the energy and resource exploration sectors.One does feel sad for Gorbachev and how under-appreciated he was by his own people. For a Communist leader, Glasnost and perestroika were extremely liberal initiatives with the good intent of providing more freedom and a better quality of life for the people of USSR Given the recent confrontation between the two former Cold War superpowers in a post Cold War world, i.e. the Ukraine War, Westad's book may be helpful in reminding us about the dangers a new Cold War poses to the world. These are possible questions one may raise after listening to and viewing Katusa’s interviews to RT and Bloomberg Radio. Over the next several decades, as tensions between East and West grew, former colonial states won their independence, sometimes peacefully, other times not. Jealous of their newly won independent status, they were wary of the embrace of either rival bloc. For a few years, spurred on by newly independent India’s Prime Minister Nehru, they sought to become a neutral grouping of unaligned states. Economic and political realities, however, soon forced most of them, especially the smaller ones, into the shadow of one camp or the other.