We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History - Softcover

Gaddis, John Lewis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198780710 ISBN 13: 9780198780717

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1998

Synopsis

Did the Soviet Union want world revolution? Why did the USSR send missiles to Cuba? What made the Cold War last as long as it did? The end of the Cold War makes it possible, for the first time, to begin writing its history from a truly international perspective. Based on the latest findings of Cold War historians and extensive research in American archives as well as the recently opened archives in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China, We Now Know provides a vividly written, eye-opening account of the Cold War during the years from the end of World War II to its most dangerous moment, the Cuban missile crisis.
We Now Know stands as a powerful vindication of US policy throughout the period, and as a thought-provoking reassessment of the Cold War by one of its most distinguished historians.

About this title

Review:

Was the Cold War inevitable? Was there an international communist conspiracy? Did Castro and Khrushchev beat Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis? After combing through a mass of declassified and previously unavailable documentation to reconsider the collision of the American and Soviet empires, Yale professor Gaddis replies in the affirmative. Given Josef Stalin's convictions, the Cold War was inescapable: it is the choices that each side made that prove fruitful for historical research, and not the mere fact of the war, as Gaddis neatly demonstrates. The American empire--Gaddis's term--prevailed because, he says, "democracy proved superior to autocracy in maintaining coalitions," and not necessarily because of any technological or economic advantage. Gaddis dispels several misconceptions and urges that students of Cold War history should foremost "retain the capacity to be surprised."

About the Author:

John Lewis Gaddis is Robert Lovett Professor of History at Yale University. His many books include Strategies of Containment, The Long Peace, and The United States and the End of the Cold War.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0198780710
• ISBN 13: 9780198780717
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448