ABSTRACT
Over the period under review Europe divided sharply between free democracies and quasi-democracies, between open and closed societies, a split that prompted Winston Churchill to encapsulate the situation in his famous “Iron Curtain” address. On one side stood free Europe, protected by an emergent American superpower, determined to eschew the isolationist stance that helped bring about the Second World War. On the other stood the captive nations of Eastern Europe dominated by the Kremlin. The fault line would remain rigidly in place until the 1989 revolutions and symbolized the Cold War more than anything else.
