Why read Red Globalization?

Book cover of Red Globalization: The Political Economy of the Soviet Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev

Book description

Was the Soviet Union a superpower? Red Globalization is a significant rereading of the Cold War as an economic struggle shaped by the global economy. Oscar Sanchez-Sibony challenges the idea that the Soviet Union represented a parallel socio-economic construct to the liberal world economy. Instead he shows that the USSR,…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Red Globalization as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Francine McKenzie

Author

This revisionist book rejects the established view that the Soviet Union opted out of the global economy to develop a parallel and exclusive communist economic system.

Despite a Cold War logic in which communist and capitalist economic systems were understood to be incompatible and engaged in a zero-sum competition, Sanchez Sibony shows that Soviet officials and leaders wanted to be engaged in the global economy, at least partly. They wanted imports; they were less keen to export.

This doesn’t make the global economy less political or ideological, but it means the Cold War alone does not explain how economics and…

From Francine's list on why international trade is all about politics.