The chill factor

Soviet scholar's new book on the Cold War dispels myths and shows how much it still influences thinking in the present day.

- BY HENRY COOKE

Do we remember the Cold War properly? The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, when the median-aged New Zealander today was 2 years old. We may have been raised on stories of bomb drills, sabre rattling and missile crises, but most of us do not remember them first-hand. The wars we recall were warmer but less all-engulfing - more readily contained in either the Middle East or now Eastern Europe.

Yet, as the Cold War recedes into history, it is clear this 46-year period still structures so much of our everyday world and the thinking of our leaders. Vladimir Putin is the most obvious example of a leader scarred and shaped by it, but he is far from alone. It is hard not to see a Cold War nostalgia in the way Washington treats Beijing, or indeed to miss the references our own Foreign Affairs Minister - named after one of the original Cold Warriors - makes to the period.

The new book by Soviet scholar Vladislav Zubok is perfect as both a primer and an antidote. It's just the right length (544 pages) to give you a brisk rundown of how the Cold War started, its leadership-driven cycles of détente and hostility, and how it ended, all without testing your patience too much.