Were there any missed chances to build a more peaceful world than the present one after the Cold War? Were there any attempts at working out a more comprehensive and more cooperative way to overcome it? What was precisely at stake during the Cold War? What was really at stake for the ‘losers’ and what stakes did the ‘winners’ gain — if there are any ‘winners’ at all? Those questions were raised during a seminar where some outstanding scholars were invited to discuss them plainly before an audience of young students in an ancient, yet ‘peripheral’ Italian university. The result may be seen as a readable concentration of basic and meaningful insights that often defy a noticeable amount of conventional wisdom on the ground of careful and authoritative scholarly research.