Electrochemistry in a divided world: the political background.

The “Cold War” was a state of prolonged military rivalry that developed after 1945 between the Western Powers (principally the United States and its allies) and the Eastern Bloc (principally the USSR and its allies). This historic struggle emerged at the end of the Second World War, as the United States began to reform the global economic system, while the USSR began to consolidate its political and military control over Eastern Europe. It continued until December 1991, when the USSR was formally dissolved. The Cold War had a huge impact on the evolution of science and technology in both the USA and the USSR, and this chapter briefly sketches some of the political background to those times.