Few periods of history enjoyed the economic growth and prosperity generated by the fear and mistrust of the Cold War. The aftermath of the Second World War left political alliances frayed and the ambitious governments of Russia and the United States taking diametrically opposite social positions. Previous World War II funding and materials supplied by the United States to Russia was redistributed to set up democratic bulwarks in Western Europe. Stalin and the Communist Soviet regime annexed roughly half of Europe while a deep freeze settled over world policy and these two superpowers drew lines across the world…