Ocean State Libraries

"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,...

Covers the long ideological conflict between the communist world and the Western democracies from the end of World War II to the collapse of communism in Europe in 1990.

During the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union had worked together to defeat Nazi Germany. But in the years after the war ended, the former allies became bitter rivals. The two superpowers did not fight each other directly; instead, they tried to get other countries to support their political and economic systems. The Soviet Union supported the establishment of Communist governments that would answer to Soviet leaders. The United...

"Discusses why the Berlin Wall was built, what life was like in a divided city, and why it was torn down, and explores the political context behind the wall." --

Explores the rivalry and tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union stemming from their differing ideologies and discusses the resulting events during the decade after World War II.

Presents a history of the tense, often combative, relations between Soviet Russia and the United States from the end of World War II to the fall of communism in 1989.

Examines the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, the day itself, and the ways in which life has changed since then.