Britain and the Cold War 1945-91

During the Cold War, the process of East West tension, though dominated by the Superpowers, was often conditioned, and in its early stages accelerated, by Britain's continuing world wide interests and influence. Since the 1980s, British scholars have been using newly released material to demonstrate the central role in the origins and development of the Cold War played by British governments from Attlee to Wilson and beyond. This is a survey of this work, which offers its own interpretations of the major events from the start of the Cold War to its end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.