Cold War and Decolonization c. 1900 to the present

The period from 1945 to 1991 was shaped by the Cold War — global political, economic, and sometimes military competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies. The threat of nuclear war limited direct military conflict between the two superpowers, but they fought several proxy-wars. Their ideological and economic competition was oriented between capitalism and communism.

At the same time imperialist or colonial empires fragmented across Asia and Africa, giving rise to newly independent nations. The superpowers and their allies competed for influence and market access in these new countries around the world. Some countries tried to avoid the binary opposition of the Cold War through the Non-Aligned Movement. Many countries struggled with economic development as well as authoritarianism.

By 1991, liberal democracy and capitalism proved more successful and durable than one-party communism, the Soviet Union fragmented, and the Cold War ended.