Portland Public Library

To build a better world, choices to end the Cold War and create a global commonwealth, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages [433]-493) and index

illustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

To build a better world

bibliography

1082184901

Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice

choices to end the Cold War and create a global commonwealth

"Two of America's leading scholar-diplomats, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, have combed sources in several languages, interviewed leading figures, and drawn on their own firsthand experience to bring to life the choices that molded the contemporary world. Zeroing in on the key moments of decision, the might-have-beens, and the human beings working through them, they explore both what happened and what could have happened, to show how one world ended and another took form. Beginning in the late 1970s and carrying into the present, they focus on the momentous period between 1988 and 1992, when an entire world system changed, states broke apart, and societies were transformed. Such periods have always been accompanied by terrible wars-but not this time. This is also a story of individuals coping with uncertainty. They voice their hopes and fears. They try out desperate improvisations and careful designs. These were leaders who grew up in a "postwar" world, who tried to fashion something better, more peaceful, more prosperous, than the damaged, divided world in which they had come of age. New problems are putting their choices, and the world they made, back on the operating table. It is time to recall not only why they made their choices, but also just how great nations can step up to great challenges. Timed for the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD is an authoritative depiction of contemporary statecraft. It lets readers in on the strategies and negotiations, nerve-racking risks, last-minute decisions, and deep deliberations behind the dramas that changed the face of Europe -- and the world -- forever"--Publisher's description

Catalytic choices -- Two East German success stories -- Ups and downs -- Operating principles for a different world -- The blindness of hindsight -- Slouching toward a systemic crisis -- What comes next? -- The renewal of the free world -- The two prophets -- The "rights" revolution -- Reconstructing global finance (but not global trade) -- Lowering barriers : the momentum of three examples -- The renewal of anticommunism -- Perestroika -- The "great man"? -- Reform communism -- To change the USSR, change the world -- Gorbachev's "turning point" in 1988 -- What would all this mean for Eastern Europe? -- When is the cold war over? -- Hopes and fears -- "Dream big dreams" -- The vectors of change -- The future of Eastern Europe -- The future of the Soviet Union -- The future of European integration -- Security in Europe -- The future of Germany -- The Chinese solution -- American decline? Soviet decline? -- The pivot : a new Germany in a different Europe -- The revolutions begin -- The Soviet agenda : beyond containment -- and beyond communism? -- Putting words into action -- A new Germany? -- A new Germany in a new Europe? -- Hit the accelerator -- Time to decide on German unity -- Should the unified Germany be in NATO? -- The German election -- The designs for a new Europe -- A new European union -- Lithuania, biological weapons : walking a tightrope -- A plan to manage German power -- How to help Gorbachev? -- Free to choose -- A new Atlantic alliance -- A final settlement for Germany -- First tests for a transformed NATO -- Creating a better league of nations -- The designs for a commonwealth of free nations -- Last chances for the soviet economy -- The breakup of the Soviet Union -- What about the nuclear weapons? -- The shock of the new : building different economies and societies -- Russia's brief window of opportunity -- The integration of Eastern Europe -- Global designs and a new world order -- The unipolar mirage -- New challenges evolve -- The financial crisis -- The migrant crisis -- Hungary and Poland again -- The United States of Europe that never was -- America : the politics of "do you hear me now?" -- From the peace dividend to perpetual war -- The break with Russia -- Is America done? -- To build a better world -- Principles, partnership, and practicality -- Balancing the local and the global -- The emergence of great power rivalry -- Can a confident America rise again?

Choices to end the Cold War and create a global commonwealth