This was a very different historical approach to what I was expecting. This is more on the academic spectrum than one written for the masses.

Cold Peace : by Michael Doyle
For the most part this is a very informative and thought-provoking book. Mr. Doyle not only covers The Cold War but also a period of time in the 1920’s-1930’s which had many of the attributes of a Cold War on a regional basis that ultimately resulted in WW II. He makes a compelling argument that the Cold War was less about geographic collisions of empires but more about the political and economic differences that produced the friction between The West & Japan vs. The Soviet Union.
Quite a bit of the book is about an equally interesting division which he defines as “Cold Peace”. Here the situation is not moving toward a crisis state mainly due to the weakness of one of the key actors in this case, the break-up of The Soviet Union into independent states and a Russia in disarray. This book is up to date until at least August of 2022 so it is fully aware of the war in Ukraine. One interesting point he makes about the Russian people’s attitude is that today 63%-70% of the capitalization of industry is state owned enterprises thus it is difficult for the Russian people to complain without losing their jobs.
I found the discussion about the comparison of Japan’s rise vs. China and the US involvement extremely interesting and worth more study on my part. For many years until the depression the US was willing to go along with Japan’s rise. The depression did not affect Japan and as a result this created the tension.
Will there be a Cold War II? Probably the difference compared to Cold War I is the potential opponent is not a strong Russia but a combination of an economically strong China and a militarily strong (at least we thought Russia). In my opinion this is short term as sooner rather than later China will abandon Russia.
If I found fault with the book it was the conclusions. In most cases Mr. Doyle takes a very optimistic point of view of how the war in Ukraine or tensions between the US and China or the West and Russia can be minimized.
Even ignoring this last chapter this is a book well worth reading for one interested in where we are and where we might be headed in geopolitics.

this was a interesting nonfiction book, it really left me thinking about the historical aspects of the book. It does a great job in telling what it was suppose to and was really well written. I thought Michael W. Doyle had a great writing style and did a great job in adding the historical elements in this. I could tell that the author knew what he was talking about and am glad I got to read this.