The World the War Left

CHAPTER 1 · 1945–1946 · The Cold War, 1945–1991

Begin with what the map already shows: no conference drew these colors — armies did. Where the Red Army stopped in 1945, Europe is red and tan; where the Western armies stopped, blue; and the vast parchment spaces of Asia and Africa still wear the blue of the empires that claim them. The victors of the same war, allies weeks earlier, now stand on either side of a line through the middle of Germany — and through the middle of Berlin, a Western island 160 km inside the Soviet zone. Note that arrangement now; it will nearly cause a war in three years and define the era for forty-four.

The turn: Moscow, 22 February 1946.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.