This book examines the role of Soviet energy during the Cold War. By bringing together a range of junior and senior historians and specialists from Europe, Russia and the US, this book represents a pioneering endeavour to approach the role of Soviet energy during the Cold War in transnational perspective.

Introduction.- Chapter 1: The Soviet Union’s Rise as an International Energy Power: A Short History; Jeronim Perović.- Part I: From World War to Cold War: Soviet Oil and Western Reactions.- Chapter 2: From Crisis to Plenty: The Soviet “Oil Campaign” under Stalin; Felix Rehschuh.- Chapter 3: Stalin’s Oil Policy and the Iranian Crisis of 1945—1946; Nataliia Egorova.- Chapter 4: “Red Oil” and Western Reactions: The Case of Britain; Niklas Jensen-Eriksen.- Chapter 5: Debates at NATO and the EEC in Response to the Soviet “Oil Offensive” in the Early 1960s; Roberto Cantoni.- Part II: From Cold War to Détente: Soviet Energy and the Expansion of East-West Trade.- Chapter 6.- Decision-Making in the Soviet Energy Sector in post-Stalinist Times: The Failure of Khrushchev’s Economic Modernization Strategy; Viacheslav Nekrasov.- Chapter 7: A Challenge to American Cold War Energy Politics? The US and Italy’s Relations with the Soviet Union, 1958—1969; Elisabetta Bini.- Chapter 8: Gaz de France and Soviet Natural Gas: Balancing Technological Constraints with Political Considerations, 1950s to 1980s; Alain Beltran and Jean-Pierre Williot.- Chapter 9: Rise of Western Siberia and the Soviet-West German Energy Relationship during the 1970s; Dunja Krempin.- Chapter 10: From Linkage to Economic Warfare: Energy, Soviet-American Relations, and the End of the Cold War; David S. Painter.- Part III: From Crisis to Collapse: Soviet Energy and the Burden of Empire.- Chapter 11: Creating a Common Energy Space: The Building of the Druzhba Oil Pipeline; Falk Flade.- Chapter 12: Calculating the Burden of Empire: Soviet Oil, East-West Trade, and the End of the Socialist Bloc; Suvi Kansikas.- Chapter 13: Drifting Apart: Soviet Energy and the Cohesion of the Communist Bloc in the 1970s and 1980s; Lorenz Lüthi.- Chapter 14: The Fall of the Soviet Union and the Legacies of Energy Dependencies in Eastern Europe; Margarita M. Balmaceda.

“The book is a welcome, rigorous, and much needed in-depth exploration of energy politics during the Cold War in Europe. Its geographical shortcomings are an invitation to continue and expand the study of the energy/Cold War nexus and its history and legacies, across and beyond its European core.” (Maurizio G. Totaro, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 70 (8), 2018)“This volume is quite impressive. It covers much new territory, effectively utilizes previously inaccessible materials, and offers nuanced insights into Soviet and CMEA energy policies during the Cold War. … this book comes at an eminently fitting time.” (Nicholas Ostrum, EuropeNow, europenowjournal.org, December, 2017)

Contributes to a largely under-researched topic in the historiography of the Cold War and Soviet gas and oil Includes newly available Western and Eastern European archival material Brings together a range of historians from the US, Europe and Russia to approach these interconnected histories from a multi-national perspective