The paper is an overview of geological results on the Late Cenozoic history internationally obtained in the arctic sector between 130°F and 50°W during the last 25 years. These have been mostly efforts by European Science Foundation projects PONAM (Late Cenozoic Evolution of the Polar North Atlantic Margins) and QUEEN (Quaternary Environments of the Eurasian North). Traces of glacial activity in the Neogene, Early and Middle Pleistocene formations of the Arctic Ocean and Greenland indicate longer glacial history of the Arctic than was assumed heretofore. Special attention is paid to the Late Pleistocene history, especially to the extent and timing of the last ice sheets, inferred from key sections on Svalbard and in Arctic Russia, as well as from marine cores. Physical datings recently obtained by optically stimulated luminescence, AMS radiocarbon, uranium-thorium and ESR methods which indicate an older age of principal events of the last interglacial/ glacial cycle of the Russian Arctic are discussed. On the whole the new data are evidence of basic difference between the histories of the Late Pleistocene inland glaciation of arctic Siberia versus the atlantic sector. In the West ice sheets were progressively growing to reach their maximum during MIS 2, whereas in Siberia they were shrinking. Late Weichselian inland ice was practically non-existent on the Russian mainland east of the Kanin Peninsula. This asymmetry in the Late Pleistocene glacial and climate history of eastern versus western Eurasia is supported by numerical glaciological modelling. The latest results also lead to a revision of the traditional Siberian framework for the Late Pleistocene history which now can be reconciled with the European chronostratigraphy.