Vladislav Zubok on What the Cold War Actually Was
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 June 2025
⏱️ 59 minutes
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Summary
These days, it's common to talk about the emergence of a New Cold War that exists between the US and China. It's debatable whether or not this is a useful framing. But in order to answer the question, it requires that you have some conception of what the original Cold War actually was. Vladislav Zubok, a professor at the London School of Economics, has a new book out on exactly this question. In The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991, Zubok attempts to explain how we should understand this period, which he sees as both an ideological battle, as well as a geo-strategic one — and also a battle that the two main actors (the US and the USSR) saw very differently at the time. In addition to understanding the contours of that tension, we discuss its applicability today, as the new administration attempts to re-arrange our relationship with China and the Middle East, as well as other rivals, allies, and partners.
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| 1:18.0 | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. |
| 1:19.4 | I'm Joe Wisenthall. |
| 1:20.6 | And I'm Tracy Allaway. |
| 1:24.7 | Tracy, you know we did that episode with Arthur Croper recently. |
| 1:28.2 | And one of the questions that came up is whether, you know, you could characterize the U.S. and China as being in a new Cold War. Right. But of course, that raises the question of, |
| 1:34.7 | what was the Cold War in the first place? It's sort of hard to answer. Are we in a new Cold War if you |
| 1:39.1 | actually don't know what the original one was? Joe, I can see through this intro already. You're trying to link it to a |
| 1:44.5 | previous podcast, but I know you've been reading the history books. That's what this is. You read |
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