A world more equal : an internationalist perspective on the Cold War / Sandrine Kott ; translated by Arby Gharibian
The post-World War II period is typically seen as a time of stark division, an epochal global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But beneath the surface, the postwar era witnessed a striking degree of international cooperation. The United Nations and its agencies, as well as re...
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| Main Authors: | Kott, Sandrine (Author) |
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| Other Authors: | Gharibian, Arby (Translator) |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English French |
| Published: | New York : Columbia University Press, [2024] © 2024 |
| Series: | Columbia studies in international and global history
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Cover |
| Summary: | The post-World War II period is typically seen as a time of stark division, an epochal global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But beneath the surface, the postwar era witnessed a striking degree of international cooperation. The United Nations and its agencies, as well as regional organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, and private foundations brought together actors from conflicting worlds, fostering international collaboration across the geopolitical and ideological divisions of the Cold War. Diving into the archives of these organizations and associations, Sandrine Kott provides a new account of the Cold War that foregrounds the rise of internationalism as both an ideology and a practice. She examines cooperation across boundaries in international spaces, emphasizing the role of midsized powers, including Eastern European and neutral countries. Kott highlights how the need to address global inequities became a central concern, as officials and experts argued that economic inequality imperiled the creation of a lasting peace. International organizations gave newly decolonized and “Third World” countries a platform to challenge the global distribution of power and wealth, and they encouraged transnational cooperation in causes such as human rights and women’s rights. Assessing the failure to achieve a new international economic order in the 1970s, Kott adds new perspective on the rise of neoliberalism. A truly global study of the Cold War through the lens of international organizations, this volume also shows why the internationalism of this era offers resources for addressing social and global inequalities today. "Diving into the archives of international organizations-the UN and its agencies, in particular, but also nongovernmental organizations and large private foundations-Sandrine Kott reveals an alternate story of the Cold War. These organizations, where actors from conflicting worlds meet and oppose each other, turn out to be places for the joint development of knowledge. They make possible and encourage international cooperation structured around causes that unite and divide at the same time: human and women's rights, peace, ecology. They promote the idea that it is possible to organize the world by regulating its imbalances and contradictions. Last but not least, they give voice to a multitude of players neglected in the great stories, in particular those of the "third world" whose demands for justice strongly marked the international agenda of this period. The cold war, where international organizations proliferated, was followed by the era of globalism, marked by capitalism and competition. This endangers the spaces of international debate as well as the projects of regulation and organization of the world which, Kott argues, human societies and their natural environments need more than ever"-- |
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| Item Description: | Orginally published as: Organiser le monde: Une autre histoire de la guerre froide © Éditions du Seuil, 2021 Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 251-279 Enthält ein Register |
| Physical Description: | xv, 294 Seiten |
| ISBN: | 9780231210157 9780231210140 |
