Analysis Of The Cold War : A New History By John Lewis Gaddis

With little knowledge of the Cold War I started to read “The Cold War, A New History” by John Lewis Gaddis. As an upcoming student of the Cold War, this book helped me to fully understand what the Cold War actually was. Furthermore, Gaddis was appraised as the “Dean of Cold War Historians” by The New York Times. Still today, Gaddis is a leading

The Cold War, a period of sustained political and military tension between the USA and the USSR, resulted in various viewpoints concerning the cause of the tension emerging. Until today the question remains unresolved, even after the 1991 release of Soviet archives. The main point of disagreement relates to the roles that ideology played in the events between 1945 and 1949. Was it the strongly opposing ideologies, capitalism and communism, or power and material interest that drove both superpowers to the decades of struggle for global supremacy.

All through school, I was taught that the United States beat back the mighty Soviet Union and that democracy and freedom prevailed; what a joke. Brands brought up Korea and Vietnam, and all the lives lost for a questionable cause. The French should have handled their business over in Vietnam. When they could not oust the North Vietnamese, they should have cut and run instead of begging for help; this would have saved countless lives. A war over in the remote jungles of Vietnam to "establish and protect democracy" was the last thing the United States needed at the time. Brands book was clear in its reasoning and the author did an excellent job of putting everything out in the open. The author wrote the book in a way that allowed the reader to gather insight from events that are not commonly viewed in the manner he presents them. Brands put the Cold War into a different perspective that showed the reader that it was not an easy "victory" for the United States.

John Lewis Gaddis offers a different opinion of the one responsible for the Cold War. He believes that Stalin’s authoritarian vision was a minor issue; the big issue

Research this week was fruitful and my bibliography grew substantially. A large part of the reason for this growth was the mining of the bibliography of other sources. One of the most fruitful was, The Cold War in a Cold Land: Fighting Communism on the Northern Plains. The book provided me with a variety of both primary and secondary sources. The list of sources includes, books, articles, and government reports. A second book that provided more sources was, How We Forgot the Cold War. The bibliography provided some sources created by the North Dakota State Historical Society. In addition to these sources, I have been looking into newspapers. I have ordered some rolls of microfilm of the Griggs County Sentinel-Courier and am still waiting for them to arrive. I started with these rolls because they came from the paper closest to the geographic center of my research, as well as the dates of my research. In addition to the rolls, I have ordered The Cold War in a Cold Land, which provided a list of other newspapers that may be useful. In addition to ordering more microfilm reels that I will have sent to me at school, I will also have the opportunity to examine many more when I return home for spring break. Many are housed at the State Historical Society, just twenty minutes

In this paper I will discuss what actions and thoughts added up to cause the cold war. The cold war lasted from September 1, 1945 to about December 25, 1991. That is about forty-five years, which is an extremely long time. The cold war was a global competition basically between two sides, the Free World, which was led by the United States of America, and the Communist World led by the Soviet Union. The struggle took place through indirect military conflict, and direct competition in the areas of economics, diplomacy, culture, space exploration, and political theory. It also involved nuclear stand offs, espionage, and global competition for other nations. The cold war has established the framework for most

Taking place right after World War II (WWII), the Cold War was a “bloodless” war that was based off of both the United States and Soviet Union’s political views, taking place between the years 1947 to 1991. Miniscule physical battles took place under each’s command, but neither side had ever fought one another directly. The conflict remained nonviolent for the most part, affecting each nation and their allies in a plethora of ways possible. Events had occurred due to the actions and beliefs of others, creating a domino effect to fall within the States. As a result of this, the Cold War served as a turning point in the United State’s history, affecting all areas economically, socially, and politically.

The Cold War represents the disputes between the Soviet Union and the United States, and may be the most noteworthy political issue of the late 20th Century. The Cold War was a very political issue because it influenced foreign policies, impacted our economy, and even affected Presidential elections. The United States was worried that the Soviet Union would extend communism throughout Europe with its power and control over smaller and weaker countries. At the beginning of the Cold War the struggles between the United States and the Soviet Union were more political than military. The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949 which alarmed the United

The Cold War, spanning almost half a century, was a conflict that accelerated the production of nuclear weapons and forced the United States and the other belligerent, the Soviet Union, to make scientific advances at a rate unseen in any other time in human history. The Cold War Comes to Main Street: America in 1950, written by Lisle A. Rose, thoroughly examines the year 1950 in the United States and the effect that the Cold War had on the American populous. Rose examines communism and the military threat that it posed on the nation and how this impacted American society and the generation that endured World War II.

With this book, a major element of American history was analyzed. The Cold War is rampant with American foreign policy and influential in shaping the modern world. Strategies of Containment outlines American policy from the end of World War II until present day. Gaddis outlines the policies of presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, including policies influenced by others such as George Kennan, John Dulles, and Henry Kissinger. The author, John Lewis Gaddis has written many books on the Cold War and is an avid researcher in the field. Some of his other works include: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War

There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historians. So wide is the range of the historiography of the origins of the Cold War that is has been said "the Cold War has also spawned a war among historians, a controversy over how the Cold War got started, whether or not it was inevitable, and

The ‘Cold War’ is one of the most interesting ‘wars’ fought in world history. The sheer number of countries both directly and indirectly involved is enough to pose the question – To what extent was the Cold War a truly Global War? This essay will examine this idea. It will identify two main areas of argument, focusing on the earlier part of the conflict (1945-1963). Firstly it will examine the growing US and Soviet influence in the world post 1945. Secondly it will examine three main conflicts, the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis that these two super powers were involved in. Overall this essay will argue that the Cold War was no doubt a truly global war.

The end of the cold war signified a new era of history that has changed the entire world. The face of Europe and Asia has changed dramatically. Vast changes have been felt socially, politically, and especially economically. Also the effect the cold war had on foreign policy was paramount. The effect of these changes is not only felt across the ocean but can be felt here in America. The goal of this paper is to define what the cold war specifically was, and reflect upon the various choices throughout the world as a result of the end of the cold war.

The term “Cold War” refers to the second half of the 20th century, usually from the end of the World War II until 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Since the 1940s and 1950s the scholars have disagreed on the topic of the origins of the Cold War. There are several groups of historians and their interpretations are very different, sometimes even contradictory. The three main schools are the orthodox, the revisionist and the realist. The classification is not completely accurate because we can find several differences in theories of scholars within the same group and often the authors reevaluated their ideas over time.

Larkin (1965), in his exam revision book European History for Certificate Classes, posited that the ‘Cold War’ was a mixture of religious crusade in favor of one ideology or the other, and of the most ruthless power politics, striking out for advantage or expansion not only in Europe but all over the world. How historians analyze the Cold War has been a major concern, such as the problems when and where the Cold War began; whether it was inevitable; and why states and individual in an international system acted in a particular