I'm a PhD student studying the Cold War in Latin America. I've read several books in the historiography while preparing for my comprehensive exams, and it still boggles my mind why some historians prefer to capitalize the War as a historical event, while others refer it lowercase. Any thoughts?
I would think if youre talking about the real deal "Cold War" you capitalize the nouns, vs. talking about a generic "cold war," which just so happened to involve communists (perhaps the USSR) and capitalists (how does the US grab you?).
But more important than what is grammatically correct is whether the authors followed their own bizarre internal logic. If authors themselves were inconsistent in the "CW/cw" affair, then Id start getting worried.