ABSTRACT
The first decade following World War II produced "bipolarism"—the division of the political world into two blocs, in which the two superpowers emerged, each armed with thermonuclear weapons. The next decade produced the "Third World," conscious of itself, organized as such at the United Nations, made up of states of enormous variety, but all claiming a common heritage—they were the products of colonialism—and most claiming, essentially, that they belonged to neither bloc. In the process of creating this Third World, the already independent states of Latin America and a smattering of others joined with the 100 new states that emerged from the breakup of the remaining colonial empires in those two postwar decades.
