After the devastation of the World Wars, the old order was replaced by new powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the colonized peoples of the global south began to demand liberation.

The Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union was a confrontation between two different ideologies, but it was also a global struggle for control over the future of the world.

Virtually none of the battles of the Cold War took place on Russian or American soil. Yet, the Cold War often got hot as the superpowers supported opposing sides in conflicts around the world.

As colonial troops returned from World War II, many started to ask why they had fought to protect freedom in Europe but were returning to colonial repression at home. The result was a wave of independence movements that dismantled European empires.

Anticolonial movements swept the colonized world after 1945. From the Caribbean, to Ghana, to Southeast Asia, nationalist leaders rose in opposition to empire and demanded independence.

The triumph of Maoist communism in China marked a new era of industrialization for the world’s most populous nation.

As decolonization rocked old colonial strongholds, civil rights activists clashed with government forces in the US. This is the story of how local struggles connected with global movements.