Cold War

Under the Mushroom Cloud

The Cold War has become this year’s hot media topic. Taylor Downing welcomes the chance to look more critically at the era of ‘mutually assured destruction’.

The Dark Side of the Moon

John Kennedy’s commitment to put a man on the Moon in the 1960s is often quoted as an inspired civic vision. Gerard DeGroot sees the reality somewhat differently.

The Berlin Wall: A Secret History

The Berlin Wall was a tangible symbol of the suppression of human rights by the Eastern bloc during the Cold War, but Frederick Taylor asks whether it was more convenient to the Western democracies than their rhetoric suggested.

Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’

Fifty years after Khrushchev’s famous denunciation of Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, John Etty examines what was at stake.