Cold War by Jeremy Isaacs & Taylor Downing

Cold War (Illustrated Companion to the CNN Cold War Series)

The Illustrated Companion to the Landmark Television History of the Superpower Confrontation, 1917 to 1991

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Cold War: For 45 years the world held its breath
• Authors: Jeremy Isaacs & Taylor Downing
• Publisher: Bantam Press, London
• Publication Date: 1998
• ISBN-13: 9780593043097
• ISBN-10: 059304309X
• Binding: Publisher's black cloth hardcover with printed, illustrated dust jacket.
• Physical Format: Large illustrated volume, 438 pages. With numerous black and white and colour photographs.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
• Exterior / Boards: The black cloth boards are clean, with only a few tiny light specks. Spine edges and corners are square and the fore-edge is clean.
• Interior: The pages seen are clean and bright, free of foxing, marks or writing. The binding is tight. No ex-library marks, stamps or bookplates.
• The Dust Jacket: Present. The illustrated jacket (mushroom cloud on a purple ground) is intact with no tears. There is light scuffing to the black spine at the top and bottom edges, slight edge rubbing and some wear at the corners. Protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover.

Synopsis & Historical Value

Published in London by Bantam Press in 1998, Cold War: For 45 Years the World Held Its Breath is the illustrated companion to the CNN documentary series of the same name. It surveys the military and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union across the half-century after the Second World War, and opens with the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Allied intervention that followed.

The chapters move from the first postwar tensions and the Iron Curtain through Berlin, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam to detente, Gorbachev and the endings of 1990-91. The narrative draws on the recollections of statesmen and ordinary people alike, and is complemented by sections on the spies, films and literature of the era.

Lavishly illustrated with black and white and colour photographs, it is a substantial, handsome volume for anyone interested in twentieth-century geopolitics, including the superpower rivalry that shaped Southern Africa's own Cold War-era conflicts.

Author Profile: Jeremy Isaacs & Taylor Downing

Jeremy Isaacs (born Glasgow, 1932) was a leading British television producer and executive. He joined Granada Television in 1958, produced the celebrated series The World at War (1973-74), and co-produced the 24-part Cold War series of 1998. He served as General Director of the Royal Opera House from 1987 to 1996, and later wrote the memoir Look Me in the Eye: A Life in Television (2006).

Taylor Downing was educated at Cambridge and became Managing Director and Head of History at Flashback Television, the production company behind the series.

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