In this journal’s recent special issue, ‘The Cold War in retrospect: 25 years after its end’, Professor Romero wrote a broad overview of the state of the field. I admire the extent of the footnotes and the fluid prose of his overview. Nevertheless, I would like to amend three ideas put forward by Professor Romero. I am not sure that we should bemoan the ‘dilution’ of Cold War history: we have to live with Cold War histories. Pointing to the Cold War beast’s ‘vital organ’ as Romero attempts is inherently problematic, because of the existence of a number of other vital and inextricably intertwined organs: the Cold War consisted instead of some sort of inextricably intertwined Cold Wars. Last, recentring the Cold War on the European theatre is seen as an antidote against the global-postcolonial-exotic trend that has accompanied the shrinking room for Europe in the US academic world and with the globalisation of higher education; but I contend that the Europe/World divide was not so clear-cut (...).