Global Tensions and Decolonization

The Cold War was marked by global tensions. In Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc tested Moscow’s resolve to maintain control as their citizens pushed for greater freedoms and an end to Soviet domination. Rebellions in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were quickly crushed by the USSR. The United States attempted to stem the tide of communist expansion in both Latin America and Asia as it intervened in Guatemala, Cuba, and Vietnam. At times, as in Berlin in 1961 and Cuba in 1962, the United States came perilously close to military conflict with the Soviet Union. By the late 1960s, however, a split between the USSR and China gave the United States greater opportunities to maneuver on the world stage. As the Western and Eastern Blocs faced off against one another in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, in Africa the inhabitants of British, French, Belgian, and Portuguese colonies were fighting for their independence.            

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/14-4-global-tensions-and-decolonization            

Welcome to A Journey into Human History.    

This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.       

The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.     

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/1-introduction    

Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production.

Om Podcasten

Welcome to a journey into human history. This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story. You may be asking yourself what is history? Is it simply a record of things people have done? Is it what writer Maya Angelou suggested—a way to meet the pain of the past and overcome it? Or is it, as Winston Churchill said, a chronicle by the victors, an interpretation by those who write it? History is all this and more. Above all else, it is a path to knowing why we are the way we are—all our greatness, all our faults—and therefore a means for us to understand ourselves and change for the better. But history serves this function only if it is a true reflection of the past. It cannot be a way to mask the darker parts of human nature, nor a way to justify acts of previous generations. It is the historian’s task to paint as clear a picture as sources will allow. Will history ever be a perfect telling of the human tale? No. There are voices we may never hear. Yet each new history book written and each new source uncovered reveal an ever more precise record of events around the world. You are about to take a journey into human history. The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. For more information please review the links and resources in the description. Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a creative common sense production.