Rethinking the Cold War (Critical Perspectives on the Past) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566395615 ISBN 13: 9781566395618

Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Synopsis

The end of the Cold War should have been an occasion to reassess its origins, history, significance, and consequences. Yet most commentators have restated positions already developed during the Cold War. They have taken the break-up of the Soviet Union, the shift toward capitalism, and electoral politics in Eastern Europe and countries formerly in the USSR as evidence of a moral and political victory for the United States that needs no further elaboration.

This collection of essays offers a more complex and nuanced analysis of Cold War history. It challenges the prevailing perspective, which editor Allen Hunter terms "vindicationism." Writing from different disciplinary and conceptual vantage points, the contributors to this collection invite a rethinking of what the Cold War was, how fully it defined the decades after World War II, what forces sustained it, and what forces led to its demise. By exploring a wide range of central themes of the era, Rethinking the Cold War widens the discussion of the Cold War's place in post-war history and intellectual life.

About this title

About the Author

Allen Hunter is Administrative Director, A.E. Havens Center for the Study of Social Structure and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin.

Reviews

The end of the Cold War gave birth to a number of works that offered basically uncritical vindication of the mainstream perceptions of American security policies and their official justifications. This collection attempts to provide a reasoned and more complex revisionist alternative to the accepted views. The 14 essays (derived from a conference on this topic) cover a variety of subjects, with noted expert Walter LaFeber leading off with "Rethinking the Cold War and After," Jeffery C. Isaac examining "Hannah Arendt as Dissenting Intellectual," and Thomas D. Lairson on "Revising Postrevisionism." Other interesting papers focus on Fidel Castro's 1960 visit to Harlem and academic research protocols in American economics. Editor Hunter (administrative director, A.E. Havens Ctr. for the Study of Social Structure and Social Change, Univ. of Wisconsin) is concerned with political communication issues. Recommended for the political science collections of public and academic libraries.?Daniel K. Blewett, Loyola Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566395615
• ISBN 13: 9781566395618
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 309
• Editor: Hunter Allen