This volume, Education, Poverty, and Inequality, explores economic hardship in the aftermath of World War II, the challenges facing newly independent nations in terms of poverty, inequality, and development, and how the major powers in the Cold War approached social welfare policy. It also examines how the nations of the developing world have grown in strength even as they have struggled with nagging development issues. The United Nations, including...

This volume, Governance and the Quest for Security, explores the approach the Allies took in rebuilding the broken postwar world-including creating such institutions as the World Bank and the United Nations-and the escalation of tensions in the Cold War. Decolonization also takes center stage: while offering hope to many of the world's people, gaining independence brought challenges still felt today. The volume concludes by examining how the Cold...

This volume, Migration and Refugees, explores the movements of people since World War II-beginning with the huge flux of humanity following the war, up to the massive migrations of people out of the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan today. It examines the ways economic hardship and political strife have caused people-over the last seven decades-to look for homes in new lands. And it also covers how environmental concerns and natural disasters...

This volume, Trade, Economic Life, and Globalization, covers the economic devastation wrought by World War II, the institutions that the Allies created to help nations recover from the war, and how the Cold War bled into the economic arena. Consumerism and the emergence of the middle class in Western countries is also a major theme, as are the challenges-and promises-created by the expansion of free trade and the collapsing of national economic boundaries....