We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Council on Foreign Relations Book) - Hardcover

Gaddis, John Lewis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198780702 ISBN 13: 9780198780700

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1997

Synopsis

"A masterly review of the early pahses of the conflict between the United States, Russia, China and their respective allies from 1946 to the Cuban missle crisis in the autumn of 1962. It is clear, thorough and judicious; in short, magnificent."--The Economist "...Gaddis has done a thorough job of collating material from these diverse sources...and constructing a trenchant analysis that puts these fascinating tidbits into context."--San Francisco Chronicle & Examiner 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 the Cuban missile crisis. The book brims with new information drawn from previously unavailable sources, with fresh insight into the impact of ideology, economics, and nuclear weapons, and with striking reinterpretations of the roles of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Khrushchev, Mao, and Stalin. Indeed, Gaddis concludes that if there was one factor that made the Cold War unavoidable it was Stalin.

About this title

About the Author

About the Author:
John Lewis Gaddis will become Robert Lovett Professor of History at Yale University in the Autumn of 1997. He has been Distinguished Professor of History at Ohio University, where he founded the Contemporary History Institute.

Reviews

An elegantly written, vivid history of the early years of the Cold War, culminating with the Bay of Pigs crisis. Noting that the flood of materials from archives in this country and abroad has substantially deepened, and sometimes considerably altered, scholars' view of events, veteran Cold War historian Gaddis (The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1972, etc.) has set out to provide an overview for a general audience of the leaders, policies, and international crises that shaped the late 1940s to the early '60s, concentrating on the two great antagonists, the US and the Soviet Union, and their leaders. While no one figure shaped the Cold War, Stalin came closest, injecting an obsessive paranoia, duplicity, and an aura of menace into the relations among postWW II states. ``Suspicion, distrust, and an abiding cynicism were,'' Gaddis observes, ``not only his preferred but his necessary environment.'' And while these qualities, along with an extraordinary capacity for cruelty, extended and preserved the USSR, they also, Gaddis argues, ensured its downfall. ``The killings Stalin authorized, the states he seized . . . the sphere of influence he imposed provided no lasting security for the Soviet Union.'' They inspired resistance that, when Soviet leaders lost the taste for repression, could not be contained. In a series of chapters on American and Russian conflicts in the third world, on the place of nuclear weapons in the uncertain balance of power, and on the increasingly uncomfortable relations between America and Russia and their respective allies, he does a superb job of synthesizing a wide range of sources, drawing clear and persuasive lessons from events. His reading of the motivations of figures as diverse as John F. Kennedy and Chairman Mao seems balanced and acute. Gaddis has written a lively, deeply informed summary, the most accessible and compelling guide to the international conflicts, issues, and dominant ideologies of the early Cold War era. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"We" refers to "historians" of the cold war, and Gaddis has been one of the most notable. In this work, he synthesizes the recent scholarship growing out of the partial opening of Soviet archives relating to the cold war, up through the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Gaddis' nuanced summary clarifies the hitherto knottiest problems of interpretation: divining Stalin's motives in communizing Eastern Europe; his role in starting the Korean War; and Khrushchev's bombastic gyrations of policy. To explain the origin of it all, Gaddis resurrects two indispensable factors: Stalin's suspicious, tyrannical personality and the Leninist ideology. Whatever the Americans did to make the cold war happen, Gaddis argues that the Soviet dictator's aims (and mistakes in pursuing them) virtually guaranteed a face-off. Nuclear weapons just ensured that the rigidity would endure until the fundamental of Stalinist rule, coercion, was repudiated. A magisterial overview that clarifies all issues of the cold war's origins. Gilbert Taylor

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198780702
• ISBN 13: 9780198780700
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 436