From the origins of the post-war world to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s, this masterly book offers an authoritative yet highly readable one-volume account. The world since 1945 witnessed fundamental changes in the direction of modern history, notably the rise of the USA as a global power, the emergence of the USSR at the head of a seemingly permanent yet actually fragile alliance system, the end of colonial empire in Asia and Africa and the escalation of terrible wars in the Third World costing literally millions of lives. In this brilliantly incisive survey T. E. Vadney examines the key events - in India, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Tiananmen Square and elsewhere - without ever neglecting the underlying trends. He explores the economic 'miracles' in Japan and South-East Asia, revolution in Latin America, the successive crises in the Middle East and Southern Africa and the aims of American foreign policy. This revised and updated second edition includes the epoch-making changes in Eastern Europe since 1989 -changes that will undoubtedly shape the world of the twenty-first century.