this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
6 points (100.0% liked)

History

502 readers
45 users here now

This is the general history subcom. Anything relating to history is welcome here. Doesn't have to be Marxist, though it certainly can be. So join in on the discussion and let's learn more.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Makan@lemmygrad.ml
Iskender@lemmygrad.ml
6
American Prestige Podcast: Espionage and Empire in the Cold War w/ Alfred McCoy [67 min] (www.youtube.com)
submitted 6 days ago by davel@lemmygrad.ml to c/history@lemmygrad.ml
2 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Spotify audio w/ commercials: https://open.spotify.com/episode/61DQToPHY68qkTUWXEvNp2

Danny and Derek speak with historian Alfred McCoy about how the Cold War operated as a global conflict influenced by decolonization, covert action, and geopolitical strategy. They discuss the role of individual intelligence operatives as “men on the spot”; Cold War rivalry and the collapse of European empires; how conflicts across Asia, Africa, and Latin America produced much of the war’s violence; the development of U.S. containment strategy and covert action institutions; and Iran as flashpoint in Cold War and post-Cold War geopolitics, and how Alfred interprets these conflicts through a lens of imperial decline and strategic chokepoints like the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz.

Buy Alfred’s book Cold War on Five Continents!

Reading recommendation: The Cold War's Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace by Paul Thomas Chamberlin.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] davel@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The only dig I have is that McCoy failed to mention the US’ covert involvement in the “people’s movements” that helped bring about the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe (and its failed attempt in Beijing in 1989).

ETA: Actually another dig is that he talks about decolonialism but not neocolonialism.