A white American woman is raped by a black Panamanian labourer in 1946 in the Panama Canal Zone, and the aftermath affects labour relations in the Western hemisphere for the next two decades. And numerous nations use the African continent to exercise their colonial muscle and post war power, only to encounter the financial and military burdens that will exhaust and alienate their own citizenry half a world away. As Race, Ethnicity, and the Cold War reveals, during this dangerous era there were no longer any ""isolated incidents."" Like the butterfly flapping its wings and changing the weather on the other side of the globe, an instance of racial or ethnic hostility had ripple effects across a Cold War world of brinksmanship between bitter national rivals and ideological opponents.