In response to the upheavals engendered by World War II, revolutions broke out or loomed throughout the world. Nationalist aspirations proved global in nature, ironically empowered by the Cold War. In Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, revolutions and counterrevolutions proliferated, and similar disruptions threatened to unfold in Europe and North America. Social upheavals began to occur in Vietnam, Mandatory Palestine, China, Algeria, Ghana and Cuba. Conservative and reactionary forces frequently pushed back, quashing hopeful developments like the Guatemalan Spring, the Hungarian Revolution, and the Prague Spring, while also readily resorting to the murder of leading progressive figures from Gandhi to Navalny.

The second volume of this detailed history explores the rippling effects of World War II across the globe, including countries experiencing colonial or neocolonial relationships. This book examines the interplay between modern revolutionary movements and campaigns seeking to prevent such movements or to reestablish a history and time that never really existed. It also traces the deadly resort to politically motivated killings, which cut short the lives of so many distinguished, sometimes beloved figures whose loss is still felt decades later.