Given the current international security environment—especially with the recent political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa—few have taken the time to reflect on the meaning or events of the Cold War. When they do, it is often with feelings of nostalgia for the "good old days" of the dangerous, yet supposedly simpler and more predictable decades spanning 1945 to 1991. James E. Wise, Jr., and Scott Baron's Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War is not a mere nostalgia trip but a series of vignettes that put a human face on key (and not so key) events of the Cold War. It provides the antithesis for the "good old days" retrospective and reminds us of the constant tensions that existed in the global environment. Given the six-decade span of the Cold War, it is remarkable that the superpowers could exercise such restraint.
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