Book Description
Origins of the Cold War, Third Edition covers the formative years of the extraordinary struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States, explaining how the cold war originated and developed. It sets out the various different explanations for the Cold War and unravels some of the complex issues which gave rise to it. Explores several questions, including, who was responsible for the Cold War, was it inevitable or could the whole episode have been avoided, and was Stalin genuinely interested in a post-war agreement? Revised, updated and expanded, this new edition in the Seminar Studies in History Series incorporates the most recent scholarship, theories and newly released information to provide an invaluable introduction. For readers interested in the World since 1945 and International relations during the Cold War period.
Book Description
In September 1946, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Nikolai Novikov, sent a 19-page cable to Foreign Minister Molotov describing the likely direction of U.S. foreign policy in the postwar period. Recently discovered in the Soviet archives, the Novikov telegram parallels the famous "Long Telegram" of U.S. diplomat George Kennan. Published here for the first time in English, Novikov's telegram is presented alongside Kennan's cable and a similar telegram by British diplomat Frank Roberts.
Customer Reviews:
The Limits of Diplomatic Reporting.......2007-05-16
This interesting but limited book reprints three diplomatic cables from 1946 that analyzed the collapse of the Anglo-American-Soviet alliance of World War II and the outbreak of the Cold War: George Kennan's famous "long telegram" from Moscow; a cable from Soviet Ambassador Novikov in Washington; and a cable sent by the British charge in Moscow. Unlike most diplomatic reports, these cables dealt with huge questions of policy and were read by top officials of the home governments. They underscore how differently London, Washington and Moscow saw the world.
The British analysis was the most nuanced and non-apocalyptic; it still instructs and reads well in 2007. In contrast, Kennan's report was surprisingly shallow, even though it had a big impact in Washington; it came close to reducing Soviet foreign policy to neurotic anxiety, as if Moscow had no legitimate interest in secure borders. The analysis sent by the Soviet embassy was a curious document, mixing paranoia about American military preparations with shrewd observations of global politics. None of the cables displayed a deep understanding of the inner workings of the host government. Each served mainly to reinforce inclinations already prevalent in foreign policy circles back home.
Connoisseurs of diplomatic reporting will enjoy this book, but there's little reason for others to bother with it. The short commentaries do not -- contrary to the title -- add up to a history of the origins of the Cold War, though they do serve as good examples of how historians analyze documents. For specialists only.
Book Description
In this novel and intriguing book, Michael Schaller traces the origins of the Cold War in Asia to the postwar occupation of Japan by U.S. troops. Determined to secure Japan as a bulwark against both Soviet expansion and Asian revolution, the U.S. instituted ambitious social and economic reforms under the direction of the flamboyant Occupation Commander, General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur was later denounced by the Truman Administration as a "bunko artist" who had wrecked Japan's economy and opened it to Communist influence, and power was shifted to Japan's old elite. Cut off from its former trading partners, which were now all Communist-controlled, Japan, with U.S. backing, turned its attention to the rich but unstable Southeast Asian states. The stage was thus set for U.S. intervention in China, Korea, and Vietnam.
Book Description
Algeria sits at the crossroads of the Atlantic, European, Arab, and African worlds. Yet, unlike the wars in Korea and Vietnam, Algeria's fight for independence has rarely been viewed as an international conflict. Even forty years later, it is remembered as the scene of a national drama that culminated with Charles de Gaulle's decision to "grant" Algerians their independence despite assassination attempts, mutinies, and settler insurrection. Yet, as Matthew Connelly demonstrates, the war the Algerians fought occupied a world stage, one in which the U.S. and the USSR, Israel and Egypt, Great Britain, Germany, and China all played key roles. Recognizing the futility of confronting France in a purely military struggle, the Front de Liberation Nationale instead sought to exploit the Cold War competition and regional rivalries, the spread of mass communications and emigrant communities, and the proliferation of international and non-governmental organizations. By harnessing the forces of nascent globalization they divided France internally and isolated it from the world community. And, by winning rights and recognition as Algeria's legitimate rulers without actually liberating the national territory, they rewrote the rules of international relations. Based on research spanning three continents and including, for the first time, the rebels' own archives, this study offers a landmark reevaluation of one of the great anti-colonial struggles as well as a model of the new international history. It will appeal to historians of post-colonial studies, twentieth-century diplomacy, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Customer Reviews:
Absolute Garbage.......2007-02-23
Connelly's book is one of the worst available on the Algerian War to date, narrowly beaten by the atrocity that is Irwin Wall's account. There seems to be a tendency on the part of English-speaking scholars to attribute to the Algerian War a global aspect that really was not that important to the outcome of the war, and even more bizarre, attributing a crucial role to the United States. Connelly's animosity toward the French shows through clearly, and prevents any sort of objective account of the war.
Try Alistair Horne's book, or the works by Martin Alexander for much better works in English, and ignore this one, it's not worth your time.
Relevant Reading for these Times.......2003-06-25
This diplomatic history of the Algerian independence movement offers insight into the events of the past year, i.e., Iraq II. As the book points out, fifty years ago American stood on the right side of history, and France faced the opposition of the world. Interesting sidenotes include France's dirty tricks by its special forces. Read this history and learn how Dulles and Eisenhower would be doves in the current US administration.
Book Description
The Cold War dominated the world political arena for forty-five years. Focusing on the international system and on events in all parts of the globe, Melvyn P. Leffler and David S. Painter have brought together a truly international collection of articles that provide a fresh and comprehensive analysis of the origins of the Cold War.
Moving beyond earlier controversies, this edited collection focuses on the interaction between geopolitics and threat perception, technology and strategy, ideology and social reconstruction, national economic reform and patterns of international trade, and decolonization and national liberation. The editors also consider how and why the Cold War spread from Europe to Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America and how groups, classes and elites used the Cold War to further their own interests.
This second edition brings the collection right up to date, including the newest research from the Communist side of the Cold War and the most recent debates on culture, race and intelligence. Also included is a completely new section dealing with the Cold War crises in Iran, Turkey and Greece and a guide to further reading.
Book Description
Holden Caulfield, the beat writers, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and James Dean—these and other avatars of youthful rebellion were much more than entertainment. As Leerom Medovoi shows, they were often embraced and hotly debated at the dawn of the Cold War era because they stood for dissent and defiance at a time when the ideological production of the United States as leader of the “free world” required emancipatory figures who could represent America’s geopolitical claims. Medovoi argues that the “bad boy” became a guarantor of the country’s anti-authoritarian, democratic self-image: a kindred spirit to the freedom-seeking nations of the rapidly decolonizing third world and a counterpoint to the repressive conformity attributed to both the Soviet Union abroad and America’s burgeoning suburbs at home.
Alongside the young rebel, the contemporary concept of identity emerged in the 1950s. It was in that decade that “identity” was first used to define collective selves in the politicized manner that is recognizable today: in terms such as “national identity” and “racial identity.” Medovoi traces the rapid absorption of identity themes across many facets of postwar American culture, including beat literature, the young adult novel, the Hollywood teen film, early rock ‘n’ roll, black drama, and “bad girl” narratives. He demonstrates that youth culture especially began to exhibit telltale motifs of teen, racial, sexual, gender, and generational revolt that would burst into political prominence during the ensuing decades, bequeathing to the progressive wing of contemporary American political culture a potent but ambiguous legacy of identity politics.
Book Description
Combining classic and contemporary scholarly essays, this best-selling anthology from the respected Problems in American Civilization series presents challenging perspectives on the complex origins of the East-West confrontation after World War II.
Book Description
This book addresses a central question about the Cold War that has never been adequately resolved. Why did the United States go to such lengths not merely to "contain" the People's Republic of China but to isolate it from all diplomatic, cultural, and economic ties to other nations? Why, in other words, was American policy more hostile to China than to the Soviet Union, at least until President Nixon visited China in 1972?
The answer, as set out here, lies in the fear of China's emergence as a power capable of challenging the new Asian order the United States sought to shape in the wake of World War II. To meet this threat, American policymakers fashioned an ideology that was not simply or exclusively anticommunist, but one that aimed at creating an integrated, cooperative world capitalism under U.S. leadership—an ideology, in short, designed to outlive the Cold War.
In building his argument, James Peck draws on a wide variety of little-known documents from the archives of the National Security Council and the CIA. He shows how American of?cials initially viewed China as a "puppet" of the Soviet Union, then as "independent junior partner" in a Sino-Soviet bloc, and ?nally as "revolutionary model" and sponsor of social upheaval in the Third World. Each of these constructs revealed more about U.S. perceptions and strategic priorities than about actual shifts in Chinese thought and conduct. All were based on the assumption that China posed a direct threat not just to speci?c U.S. interests and objectives abroad but to the larger vision of a new global order dominated by American economic and military power. Although the nature of "Washington's China" may have changed over the years, Peck contends that the ideology behind it remains unchanged, even today.
Customer Reviews:
China emerges from its isolation to become a world force to be reckoned with........2007-03-12
College-level students of political science and foreign relations will find plenty of background history in WASHINGTON'S CHINA: THE NATIONAL SECURITY WORLD, THE COLD WAR, AND THE ORIGINS OF GLOBALISM. Why did the U.S. seek to isolate China from all political and economic ties to other nations? Was it more hostile to China than the Soviet Union? These and other questions about China's capabilities are especially meaningful today, as China emerges from its isolation to become a world force to be reckoned with.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Book Description
The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics.
The Specter of Communism is a concise history of the origins of the Cold War and the evolution of U.S.-Soviet relations, from the Bolshevik revolution to the death of Stalin. Using not only American documents but also those from newly opened archives in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe, Leffler shows how the ideological animosity that existed from Lenin's seizure of power onward turned into dangerous confrontation. By focusing on American political culture and American anxieties about the Soviet political and economic threat, Leffler suggests new ways of understanding the global struggle staged by the two great powers of the postwar era.
Customer Reviews:
Blame america , excuse the murdering monsters.......2007-04-02
This book is basically an apology for Russian communism. One that proclaims the message: "communism isn't all that bad". "Stalin was a prudent, cautious and reasonable man and the Americans were the knee-jerk irrational reactionists" The book also seems to convey the message that "America made it seem worse than it was and hyped it up".
I mean, why should any country have reservations about the spread of communism? Communism, a form of government that is the privileged few, the Nomenclatura, who rule with absolute power over the lower party members and the general population, the proletariat. Let's not forget, commumism produced leaders such as Lenin, Stalin and Pol Pot. Sure, it's intentions may be good.....but human nature won't let it work. Power is its end.....not its mean, though that's what the original bolshevik revolutionaries proclaimed.
Basically, it's a 'blame america first' type of book. I for one am not going to be swayed just because of this author's talented writing skills, his commumist-friendly opinions and artful ways of persuasion using history. Nope. I blame communism and Stalin ( who murdered millions of his own......MILLIONs )
The 'amoral' U.S.A........never murdered millions of its citizens on the whim of their President. It never negated the existence of people on a list. A list who was cavalierly reviewed by the president, Stalin, and checkmarked with a pen as he decided whose life to end and existence from the records of history to erase. Many others were sent to Gulags never to be heard from again. It was the communist bastion of the USSR and ITS President, Stalin who did this.
Considering these above mentioned historically documented facts regarding the terrors inflicted upon the population by the ruling Red party, not only in the old USSR but other communist regimes (cambodia, Cuba, Vietnam and China for that matter), is it possible that the United States' "fears" or "overreactions" to the spread of communism after WWII were, perhaps, a bit justified? If these communist countries, in the decades following, WWII had turned out to be benevolent, non-tyranical, beneficial to their general populations or 'good' in any sense of the word, then the USA's reactions and maneauverings after the war would have been, as the author puts it, 'an overreaction'. But, because history proved that communism was indeed a monstrous terror upon the peoples of those particular countries, does it not justify our government's sentiments toward communism's spread post WWII? Indeed it does. Thank God for the actions that our government took to jealously protect our way of life.....which, incidentally, is the best way of life on the earth ( why does everyone seek to get into America if it's not the best?)
I side with America and I side AGAINST communism. This goes for any period of history.....from the 1940s until present. Like the WHO songs says......" Won't be fooled again"
As Good As It Gets.......2006-11-26
Melvyn Leffler's "The Specter of Communism" is a superb, short, and nuanced history of the origins of the Cold War. It should be assigned reading in any college course on 20th century American foreign policy.
In Leffler's telling, Stalin felt vulnerable after World War II and wanted to preserve good relations with the U.S. The Soviet dictator insisted, however, on moving his borders westward, installing a puppet regime in Poland, and playing a leading role in the occupation of Germany and Japan. These goals didn't necessarily clash with core U.S. interests and might not have resulted in a Cold War if Europe and East Asia hadn't been on the verge of collapse after 1945. Since World War I, Washington had been haunted by the fear that the resources of Europe and Asia might fall under the control of one hostile power -- either Germany or Russia -- that could then threaten the security and political economy of the U.S. Washington policymakers didn't think that Stalin planned to start a new war, but they panicked when communist parties surged in France, Italy and elsewhere. Assuming that communist governments would link their economies to the USSR's, Washington responded by moving to rebuild the German economy and integrating Germany into a U.S.-led European bloc. Stalin, fearing a revival of German power, clamped down on Eastern Europe and blockaded Berlin. The Cold War was soon going at full steam.
One of the high points of Leffler's book is the discussion of the domestic politics of anti-communism. American conservatives didn't give a hoot about Europe or foreign policy, but they did want to exploit anti-Red feeling to discredit New Dealers and crack down on labor unions and civil rights groups. However, having stirred up a lot of paranoia, conservatives were outflanked when the Truman Administration tapped these same sentiments to win support for expensive plans to rearm the U.S. and rebuild Europe! Thus the Great Bipartisan Compromise of the 1950s and '60s was born: an anti-Soviet foreign policy was married to crude Red Baiting at home.
Leffler writes clearly, understands the policy environment of Washington, and doesn't accept the prevailing (and idiotic) myth that U.S. foreign policy is generally well-informed or motivated by moral considerations. On the contrary, the U.S. policymakers of the late 1940s were more-or-less amoral and sometimes poorly informed about foreign countries. (American foreign policy can be Machiavellian and inept at the same time.) "The Specter of Communism" is history at its best.
Readable and insightful survey of the genesis of the Cold War.......2006-04-27
I was assigned to read this short book for a course on United States foreign policy in the 20th century. Unlike a great many texts on the subject, I found it absolutely enjoyable to read. Things to watch in particular are how Leffler handles the shift of how the United States officially and popularly felt about Communism and the Soviet Union before and after World War II, the formulation of the doctrine of containment, and most especially the interplay between the leadership not only in the United States, but the Soviet Union and Europe as well. This final point, the exploration of the nature of particular leaders and national psyches, is the greatest strength of Leffler's account. FDR, Truman, and Stalin especially come alive in the narrative. Through the course of the narrative, the reader is given a very interesting and now unconventional thesis that to some extent, the Cold War was indeed inevitable in the post-war world as a result of the positions of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the ruin of Europe. Especially pivotal to the coalescence of the Cold War was the United States' declaration of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. Leffler says: "The American intent was not to threaten the Soviets or divide Europe, but this was the price the Truman administration was willing to pay in order to revitalize Western Europe and harness the resources of western Germany" (pg 67).
Overall, this is an intelligent and accessible account of the origins of the Cold War that anybody interested in the World Wars, the Soviet Union, Communism, and/or contemporary foreign policy would do well to read.
Good survey of US bias against communism.......2000-07-14
This book is good for what it tried to accomplish. Its a introductory survey of the origins of an American mindset against communism. Leffler points out that communism wasn't a concern of the USA population or politicians until after WWII- when the communist began to rival democratic capitalism. Leffler uses historical documents to support the assertion that the sum of world-wide communism never really came close to rivialing the US in terms of economic or military power. However, the fear that maybe communism could gain equal status one day in the future led the US to undertake decisive actions toward securing Hegemony.
The Specter in America.......2000-04-12
Leffler writes a balanced account of the events leading up to and into the the Cold War. He discusses the impact of geopolictics with regard to the First and Second World Wars and how communism impacted American public policy. He points out that it was not so much fear of the physical power of the Soviet Union but fear of the ideologies of communism within our borders that led the anit-communist anti-Soviet movements in our nation. He follows the growth of Russia into a world power and explains how it eventually became a military threat and a nuclear power. The book is engrossing and well structured. Leffler presents the information in a clear way without unnecessary deviations. It is an excellent look at Cold War origins.
Book Description
For almost a decade, the tyrannical Ngo Dinh Diem governed South Vietnam as a one-party police state while the U.S. financed his tyranny. In this new book, Seth Jacobs traces the tragic history of the so-called Diem experiment from his first appearance in Washington as a penniless expatriate in 1950 to his murder by South Vietnamese soldiers on the outskirts of Saigon in 1963.
Customer Reviews:
Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950-1963.......2007-08-23
Jacobs bring a clarity and detail to the motivations of the both the Diem and larger Vietnam era. Anyone who seeks insight into the process in which America chose the path to war and involvement in South East Asia needs to read this book. A true original.
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1945 - Present
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| United States
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| Subjects
| Books
Russia, America and the Cold War, 1949-1991 (2nd Edition) (Seminar Studies in History Series)
Rise to Globalism
Stalin and Stalinism, Third Edition
The Origins of the Second World War: Seminar Studies in History Series, Second Edition
The Long Fuse: An Interpretation of the Origins of World War I
