With its accession to membership of the United Nations in the early 1970s, the Federal Republic of Germany found new scope for its foreign policy, and it was at a time when the global North-South divide became a focus point of international politics. This is the background to the articles in the second volume of the German Yearbook of Contemporary History, edited by two historians from the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte (Institute for Contemporary History Munich - Berlin) - Agnes Bresselau von Bressensdorf and Elke Seefried - together with Christian Ostermann from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. The yearbook deals with West Germany during a time of Cold War confrontation, issues of human rights and threat from radical Islam. Selected contributions from the quarterly Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte offer detailed analyses of West German policies toward Cambodia, Chile, Iran and Afghanistan, and international experts provide a vivid commentary. The German Yearbook of Contemporary History is published by the Institute for Contemporary History Munich - Berlin.