Bridging East and West recounts the events that led to the founding of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in 1972. This long and arduous process sprang from the multilateral part of American bridge building policies during the 1960s and early 1970s. It serves as a microcosm for multilateral relations where many partners pursue their own agendas. The euphemism for the process, 'Common Problems of Advanced Industrialized Societies', was used to attract Western as well as Eastern European nations and shows that the Americans also needed bridges to the West. It is said that the goal of the institute was to bring together researchers from East and West to solve pertinent problems caused by the modernization process experienced in industrialized world.