Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, an uneasy standoff developed between the US-led NATO Allies and a Soviet Union-dominated Eastern Bloc. For the next four decades the two sides prepared for a conflict that thankfully never happened. This 'Cold War' came to an end following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but decades later traces of these mighty war machines still remain around the world.

Abandoned Cold War Places explores many of these relics, including such remarkable sites as the Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona, an immense aircraft scrapyard housing more than 4000 USAF aircraft; the vast, remote former nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan; disused concrete pagodas on the east coast of England, once an Atomic Weapons Research Establishment test site; wrecked Foxtrot-class submarines, icebound in Vladivostok in Russia's far east; the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California, a place contaminated by nuclear accidents; and old Soviet fighter aircraft left for scrap in the wastes of Siberia.

With 170 outstanding photographs, Abandoned Cold War Places is a fascinating pictorial examination of the remnants of a global superpower rivalry that defined the world for over 40 years.

Books by Robert Grenville