In 1945 war came to an end. But a whole new terror was just beginning. . . Cold War, the most gripping non fiction book of the year, takes us as never before to the time when the world stood on the brink of destruction. Here is the truth behind every spy thriller you've read: why America and the Soviet Union became locked in a deadly stalemate; how close we really came to nuclear catastrophe; what was going on in the minds of leaders from Stalin to Mao Zedong, Reagan to Gorbachov; how secret agents plotted and East German holidaymakers helped the Berlin Wall fall. It is the story of crisis talks and subterfuge, tyrants and power struggles - and of ordinary people changing the course of history.