The Cold War: A History in Documents (Pages from History) - Softcover

Winkler, Allan M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199765987 ISBN 13: 9780199765980

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

The cold war lasted for more than fifty years and polarized the world. Rooted in political and ideological disagreements dating back to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the war emerged from disputes that intensified in the wake of World War II. In The Cold War: A History in Documents, Second Edition, Allan M. Winkler excerpts speeches by Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and British prime minister Winston Churchill in order to demonstrate the growing abyss between the two political systems. President Harry S. Truman's announcement of the existence of a Soviet atomic bomb and his speech to Congress launching the Truman Doctrine testify to the gravity of the situation. The complex politics of the Vietnam War appear in voices of those as divergent as Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh, President Lyndon B. Johnson, antiwar protestors, and a participant in the My Lai massacre. A picture essay, "The Atom Unleashed," provides a collection of photographs and cartoons tracing one of the most controversial discoveries of the twentieth century. And a final chapter chronicles in detail the end of the cold war.

The second edition of The Cold War: A History in Documents offers more thorough coverage of the 1970s through the1990s. The book features additional material on China and Africa, and several new images, including a Herblock editorial cartoon about the Marshall Plan and a French Communist Party poster for peace in Vietnam. There is also a revised note on sources and interpretation and updates to the lists of further reading and websites.

About this title

About the Author:

Allan M. Winkler is Distinguished Professor of History at Miami University in Ohio. A prize-winning teacher, he is author of ten books of his own, including "To Everything There Is a Season": Pete Seeger and the Power of Song (OUP, 2010), Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America (2005), and Life Under a Cloud: American Anxiety about the Atom (1993), and coauthor of the college textbook The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society (2011) and the high school textbook America: Pathways to the Present (2002).

Review:

"During the Cold War - often referred to as a war of spies - policymakers' public statements could not always be relied upon to determine their governments' intentions. What cannot be argued with are their documents. The Cold War: A History of Documents provides us with these most valuable resources and enables us to get to the bottom of many of the major Cold War developments. See beyond the plausible deniability to the actual motivations of the protagonists in this epic struggle." -- Matt Arnold, International Spy Museum

"This substantial, intriguing collection uses primary sources from transcripts, reports, political speeches, and pop culture icons to explain events and policies of the Cold War."--Horn Book Guide

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0199765987
• ISBN 13: 9780199765980
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 160