John Lewis Gaddis 's The Cold War

After World War II, only two world superpowers remained: the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The contradictory political regimes of the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union were believed to be mutually exclusive which increased bitterness between them. Inevitably, the apparent tension between the two superpowers led to the Cold War which lasted about 45 years. It was war without bloodshed or battle, instead it was a metaphorical war where the U.S and the Soviet Union increased their weapons and fought for political influence, one always wanting to excel or maintain within the range of the other. The United States’ desperate need to contain the communist political ideology from spreading any further and meet the Soviet Union’s increased development of nuclear weapons led to the their involvement in the Cold War. The impact the Cold War had on life during the 1950’s and 1960’s can be measured through the creation of the House Un-American

The US and the USSR maintained their diplomatic relations, and yet, behaved like enemies. Many historians refer to the war as “diplomatic war”. The Cold War was defined by Fleming as “a war that is fought not in the battle field, but in the minds of men; one tries to control the minds of other.” Unlike a standard war, it was fought in the diplomatic channels and the United Nations forum. As the Cold War progressed, its nature underwent many changes during over four decades, however, three primary characteristics of the Cold War were recognized by the historians C. Kegley and E. Wittkopf, they are the

Brands' purpose for writing this book was to inform the reader of actions taken before, during, and after the Cold War. After World War II, the United States and Russia were the only two remaining world powers. Each had a conflicting method of government, which ultimately led to the Cold War. The two superpowers were at the center of attention for the better part of

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

Within this book, Martin McCauley explains how the tensions between the Soviets and Americans arise and how it escalated into the Cold War. It also includes a timeline of historical events that are important to the unfolding of the Cold War, a list of important people involved during the Cold War’s formative years, and a list of important documents from the formulating years of the Cold War, 1941-1949.

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

The Cold War: A New History written by John Lewis Gaddis (a professor at Yale University who wrote other books such as The United States and the Origins of the Cold War and Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security) delivers a summarized, yet skewed interpretation of what had happened during the era known as the Cold War. Throughout the book, the author attempts to provide history of the Cold War, while adding in generalizations, incomplete facts, as well as flat out bias.

The orthodox view of the Cold War elucidates its inevitability due to the great ideological differences that existed between the Soviet Union and United States. On the other hand, the revisionists argued that it happened due to the actions that Soviets took and the consequential responses made by the United States as a result of their inflexible, single-sided interpretations of Soviet action. Yet, even with the backdrop of the early Bolshevik conflict in 1918 as well

However, the Cold War was not completely inevitable. Both revisionist and orthodox historians agree that the war “resulted from essentially unilateral actions by one or another power and that therefore the cold was an avoidable tragedy” (Crockatt 65).

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

After the World War II, the world was moving to new period economically, and politically. Atomic and nuclear weapons and technologies such as a satellite were also developed. At that time, there were two superpowers, the United States and The Soviet Union in the world. During the World War II, they were on the same side, but the Soviet Union’s development of communist society and weapons gradually made the United States’ anxieties about loss of their position as the most powerful state in the world. Then, the Cold War was happened. This essay will explain that the Cold War meant a conflict between ideologies and races between the United States and the Soviet Union with involving many other countries, and also argue that the war brought several impacts on diplomatic relations, creation of treaties and many countries’ politics. Firstly, this essay will state that the Cold War was an ideological conflict between two superpowers. Secondly, it will argue that the war was an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Thirdly, it will also argue that the war was a space race between those two superpowers. Fourthly, it will explain that the war, however, was worldwide. Then, it will state that many treaties were concluded between countries during the war. It will also explain that the cold war made confused China-the United States relations. Finally, it will argue that the war made several political change in the world.

It has been argued that there is not one reason for all these events to occur over half a century in 1945 to 1991. There are different factors for different times and different events that influenced foreign policy between those dates. Ideology, security and the nuclear race have been disputed to be the main drives of the cold war period. These factors are also intertwined with one another, therefore it can be difficult to state which is the core factor for this conflict. In this essay, the importance and critiques of these factors will be discussed. In the post-world war world, political and military tensions arose between powers in the Eastern and the Western blocks. In 1946, Winston Churchill held a speech in Fulton, Missouri, arguing how an ‘iron curtain’ had descended between east and west. This iron curtain meant there was a boundary line which had divided Europe into two separate areas of political influence. (Heywood, 2014) argued that the cold war was merely driven by “misunderstandings and misconceptions from both sides”.

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 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