The United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which emerged from World War II as rival superpowers, competed for more than forty years for control of the world. The geopolitical struggle, and the underlying threat of nuclear confrontation, affected most of the earth’s population and produced wide-ranging consequences within the US and USSR and in countries on every continent. This course will provide an analysis of the origins and outcomes of the Cold War both globally and domestically, spanning from the end of World War II through the collapse of the Soviet Union.