The Start of the Cold War: The History of the Burgeoning Rivalry Between the United States and Soviet Union

In the wake of World War II, the European continent was devastated, and the conflict left the Soviet Union and the United States as uncontested superpowers.This ushered in over 45 years of the Cold War, and a political alignment of Western democracies against the Communist Soviet bloc that produced conflicts pitting allies on each sides fighting, even as the American and Soviet militaries never engaged each other. Though it never got “hot” between the two superpowers, the Cold War was a ten...