The inhabitants of the ‘common European house’ seem once again to be dividing into two camps: those who live in free, prosperous and secure societies, and those who are subject to manipulation, repression and, above all, neglect. In that context, Mark Gilbert’s concise history of how Europe lived through the Cold War and its end from 1945 to 1992 provides a welcome opportunity to refresh recollections and reflect on parallels and differences. . . .Along the way, Gilbert skilfully develops a few major themes. . . with an eye for gripping detail.

Survival: Global Politics and Strategy

The book illuminates an important and sometimes forgotten aspect of the conflict. . . . Gilbert’s analysis demonstrates the centrality of European actors to a variety of Cold War events.

Journal of Contemporary History

Mark Gilbert writes with clarity and verve, and the story he tells is a dramatic, Europe-wide one that embraces both Western and Eastern European countries. This allows him to reveal the deeper social and economic layers of the Cold War conflict as it played out across the continent, on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Anne Deighton, University of Oxford

In this valuable account of the Cold War as European history, Mark Gilbert provides a crisp introduction to the politics of European governments and parties— East and West—in a divided continent. Thus he retrieves, and reclaims, the Europeans’ own agency in the Cold War—for good and bad. The paradoxical conclusion of this wide-ranging international history of politics is that the historic defeat of Soviet communism is ultimately premised on economics, on the superior efficacy of capitalism upon the socialist command economy.

Federico Romero, European University Institute

This outstanding overview of the huge and complex history of the Cold War puts Europe back where it belongs, at its very center, as this was not a bipolar contest between two superpowers. With immense erudition, Mark Gilbert presents a beautiful narrative and well-balanced analysis, giving due importance to actors and developments on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Gilbert brings events to life in snapshots, with colorful references to films, novels, and art that capture the essence of this huge ideological conflict. A powerful evocation of an era.

Beatrice Heuser, University of Reading