The "dean of Cold War historians" ( The New York Times ) now presents the definitive account of the global confrontation that dominated the last half of the twentieth century. Drawing on newly opened archives and the reminiscences of the major players, John Lewis Gaddis explains not just what happened but why —from the months in 1945 when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. went from alliance to antagonism to the barely averted holocaust of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the maneuvers of Nixon and Mao, Reagan and Gorbachev. Brilliant, accessible, almost Shakespearean in its drama, The Cold War stands as a triumphant summation of the era that, more than any other, shaped our own.

約翰•劉易斯•加迪斯（JOHN LEWIS GADDIS），現為耶魯大學羅伯特•A.拉韋特（Robert A Lovett）講座教授，著名的冷戰史學傢和大戰略研究傢，曾被《紐約時報》稱作“冷戰史學泰鬥”，2005年獲美國“國傢人文奬章”（National Humanit ies Medal）。著有《遏製戰略》（Strategies of Containment）、《長和平》（The Long Peace）、The United States and the Origins of the Cold War、、We Now Know、The landscape of History、Surprise, Security, and the American Experience、George F. Kennan。

翟強 ，美國奧本大學濛哥馬利校區曆史係教授。研究領域和專長是中美關係史、冷戰史和越南戰爭史。主要英文學術專著有China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975 (2000); The Dragon, the Lion, & the Eagle: Chinese-British-American Relations, 1949-1958 (1994)。

張靜，中共中央黨校中共黨史教研部講師，北京大學曆史學係曆史學博士，北京大學與加州大學爾灣分校聯閤培養博士生（2007-2008年）。研究領域為中美關係史、中華人民共和國史。