The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis

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

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

John Lewis Gaddis, is a leading American Historian of the Cold War. He is the Professor of history at Yale University. He is already the author of six books on the same subject. The Cold War: A New History, however, has been written on a less cosmic level. He has distilled a life time of research into this short but comprehensive book. He has given new avenues to old controversies in worldly and stylish, yet direct and plain-spoken manner. The book offers a lot of summaries to intricate historical issues and provides new avenues of thinking about conflict which arose out of pre-emption and ended in the hope for the world.

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, 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.

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.

Right after the Japanese surrendered to the Allies, and after Hitler's Nazi regime had been defeated, there was a struggle between the U.S. (and democratic allies of the U.S.) and the Soviet Union for power and influence in the post-WWII world. This struggle was called the Cold War, and it entailed many events and a great deal of tension between the forces of communism and those of democracy. American diplomat George Kennan explained that the Soviet Union was "…a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S. there can be no permanent Vivendi [agreement between parties that disagree]…" (History.com). President Harry Truman said that it "…must be the policy of the United States…to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures" (History.com). This paper reports the responses and conceptions three different individuals to questions about the Cold War.

I chose The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis for my book to review. I originally read parts of this book for History of the International System, but we did not read the entire book in class, only certain chapters. It’s been two years since I’ve picked up the book, and after reading about the Cold War in the context of U.S. foreign policy rather than simply an international history class, it seems like an entirely new book. I really like how the book into broken up into a series of themes, rather than a chronological re-telling of history year by year. More than that, his book is not so much a history of the war as it a re-telling and careful account, or rather, an interpretation of the Cold War to his readers. Gaddis published this book in 2005, long after the Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Another interesting feature of this book is that Gaddis writes in almost over-simplistic terms to illustrate his points. The conflicts between the communists and the capitalists; between Stalin and the free world; and between right and wrong are heavily emphasized in this book. However I did not walk away from reading this book with one clear theme, lesson, or moral from Gaddis about the Cold War as a whole. Maybe this was Gaddis’s intention, but I certainly expected him to have an overarching lesson for those of us who were born after the end of the Cold War, myself included, as his presentation of the Cold War themes were certainly based on his

The Cold War was a time of military and political tension that came about in the years following World War II, and was characterized by a lack of large scale military engagements between the powers involved. The “war” was waged between the Eastern Bloc which was comprised of the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact, and the Western Bloc which wascomprised of The United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States had profoundly different ideological, political, and economic differences, and as a result the use of diplomacy was instrumental in preventing the advent of a third World War. A specific example of this diplomacy was that of John F.

Cold By: Na Lin Introduction The Cold War is the relationship between the US and the USSR after WWII.Different views were clashing. Both sides struggle for dominance. They took every chance they can get to expand in the world.It was a rivalry that was open yet restricted.George Orwell was the first person to use the term “Cold War” in an article in England in 1945.The first person to used the term in the United States was by Bernard Baruch in a speech in 1947.The Cold War had solidified by 1947-1948.Introduction cont.It was part of international affairs for years. The Cold War was a dispute over Europe’s future.Many events and confrontations happened around the world during this time such as the Cuban Missile Crisis,Vietnam,Hungary,the

The Cold War, coined by Bernard Baruch, would be used to describe the period between 1945 and 1991, where tensions between the East and West increased. Reasons for the Cold War have been heavily debated, orthodox theories, look at Soviet aggression as dictating American policy, yet this is disputed by revisionist, who attribute more blame to America. However, post revisionism is possibly better, looking to other factors rather than blaming one state, looking mostly at leadership and the breakdown of diplomacy.

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’ had been used to describe periods of extreme tensions between states, which never culminate to actual, direct warfare. However, for the purpose of this essay, we will define the Cold War as being the period of hostility that existed between two blocs shortly after World War II and divided the world into two parts: the Soviet bloc and the Western bloc. More than just a conflict, the Cold War was, as the historian John Mason pointed out, ‘a fundamental clash of ideologies and interests’ between Soviet-sponsored communism and capitalism promoted by the United States. This essay will argue that the announcement of the Marshall Plan at Harvard on the 5th of June 1947 - a European Recovery Program initiated by the US Secretary