For forty years the Cold War defined the world in which we all lived, shaping our political choices, killing over 25 million people, and nearly leading to the destruction of humanity itself on one very special day in October 1962.  Thirty years later the Cold War was no more and the world – we were told – could now look forward to a “new world order”. Yet it was not be. America under G.W Bush revived spectres of the past by talking of a new ‘axis of evil’.  Russian reform turned into Putin’s annexation of Crimea. While in China talk of a ‘peaceful rise’ was replaced by an altogether more assertive stance which seemed to question the established rules of the international community.

This discussion asks and tries to answer three big questions: In what sense did the Cold War represent a revolution in world history? Was 1989 yet another – very different kind of - revolution in international affairs? And why does the Cold War we all thought dead and buried continue to exercise such influence on our discourses about the modern world?

Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) is a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Institute of Global Affairs at LSE and a columnist for the Washington Post.

Jonathan Fenby (@JonathanFenby) is a former editor of the Observer and South China Morning Post and a founding partner and Managing Director of Trusted Sources Research Service. He is an author of several popular books on China, including the acclaimed Tiger Head, Snake Tails; The Penguin History of Modern China; and Will China Dominate the 21st Century?

Gideon Rachman (@gideonrachman) is the chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times. In 2016 he won the Orwell Prize for Journalism and was named Commentator of the Year at the European Press Prize awards. Previously he worked for The Economist for fifteen years, serving as a foreign correspondent in Washington, Bangkok and Brussels. His new book is Easternisation: war and peace in the Asian century. 

Michael Cox is Director of LSE IDEAS. 

LSE IDEAS (@LSEIDEAS) is a foreign policy think-tank within LSE's Institute for Global Affairs.  

Suggested Twitter hashtag for this event: #LSELitFest

This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2017, taking place from Monday 20 - Saturday 25 February 2017, with the theme "Revolutions".

Podcast

A podcast of this event is available to download from From One Cold War to Another?

Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.