ABSTRACT
The introduction lays out the main argument of the book. Cold War Assemblages aims to produce a decisive understanding of the fact that the Cold War has had an extraordinary impact in shaping the postcolonial world by bridging the gap between what are seen as two distinct histories: one of the longue durée of European colonialism and the other of the 45-year period of intellectual, ideological, and geopolitical rivalry between the US and the USSR that came to be called the Cold War. By exploring the inherent connectedness between the emergence of the two superpowers and a decolonizing Third World, the book is able to address trajectories, linkages, echoes, hauntings, and residues that show the Cold War as having continued the dynamic of European colonialism. The introduction also explores the definition and scope of assemblage theory to activate several connected yet disparate fields, and assemble them to allow for the emergence of an alternate historical and theoretical trajectory about the Cold War.
