Debating the Origins of the Cold War: American and Russian Perspectives (Debating Twentieth-Century America)

Debating the Origins of the Cold War examines the coming of the Cold War through Americans' and Russians' contrasting perspectives and actions. In two engaging essays, the authors demonstrate that a huge gap existed between the democratic, capitalist, and global vision of the post-World War II peace that most Americans believed in and the dictatorial, xenophobic, and regional approach that characterized Soviet policies. The authors argue that repeated failures to find mutually acceptable solutions to concrete problems led to the rapid development of the Cold War, and they conclude that, given the respective concerns and perspectives of the time, both superpowers were largely justified in their courses of action. Supplemented by primary sources, including documents detailing Soviet espionage in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s and correspondence between Premier Josef Stalin and Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov during postwar meetings, this is the first book to give equal attention to the U.S. and Soviet policies and perspectives.

Ralph B. Levering teaches U.S. diplomatic history at Davidson College in North Carolina. Vladimir O. Pechatnov is chair of the Department of European and American Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Verena Botzenhart-Viehe teaches at the Hotchkiss school. C. Earl Edmondson is chair of the Department of History at Davidson College in North Carolina.