Looking for a solid non-fiction account of this period. Ideally not too academic but also not too dumbed down. Also no anti-Soviet propaganda books.

Cheers

That's a pretty big topic/period. Is there any specific focus you want? @passing_the_time

mainly touches WW2 and a little bit of the start of cold war, Stalins war by Robert Geoffrey is good if ur just interested in the cold war part you can read from chapter 10 onwards

Sounds broad but something that particularly focuses on a soviet perspective. I learned about Vietnam and s*** in school but it was largely from the US perspective.

Looking over the mainstream survey style books, assuming you want a big overview, Westad seems like a better option than Gaddis and the other boomers. He takes a more region specific approach and seems a lot less imperial.

goodreads.com/book/show/33775602-the-cold-war

If you wanted to go full online commie, you could try Murray's The Triumph of Evil. That one is pretty obscure though.

I honestly think the most responsible approach would just be what you've done with Vietnam. Look at one country or topic at a time.

Bevin's The Jakarta Method is about violent anti-communism during the cold war and mass killings in Indonesia for instance. Season 2 of the podcast Blowback is a great series on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Season 3 is about the Korean War. Pair that book and that podcast with a documentary like Hearts & Minds about Vietnam and you're covering a lot of ground.

thank you, that overview book looks good. I mainly read fiction or philosophy so I'm not sure I have to patience to go through each topic, but if something particularly piques my interest then I'll look into that one in particular after.

My favorite lefty survey book is John Rees' Timelines which is only like 225 pages and covers the entire 20th century so give that a peep if you're just tryna get perspective. His chapters on WWI and WWII specifically kind of changed my opinion on them forever.

Thanks, will peep

first book looks like what I'm looking for

Tim weiner - legacy of ashes

"Blackshirts & Reds" a classic