Frank Kofsky is Professor of History at California State University, Sacramento.
Kofsky (history, California State Univ. at Sacramento) has a reputation for possessing a heavy-handed, pedantic style (as seen in Black Nationalism and the Revolu tion in Music , LJ 6/1/71, and Lenny Bruce: The Comedian as Social Critic , LJ 11/15/74). The same approach weighs down his latest work. Kofsky shows evidence of thorough research but is never able to convince the reader of his belief that the events of the spring of 1948 are historically important and relevant to understanding the Truman presidency. Rather, he buries the reader with acerbic one-liners and countless narrow points of facts to back his argument. The work is particularly disappointing coming on the heels of David McCullough's Truman ( LJ 6/1/92). Kofsky has missed an opportunity to connect with a growing audience of Truman enthusiasts on both a scholarly and popular level. Not recommended.-- Robert Favini, Bentley Coll. Lib., Wal tham, Mass.
Kofsky, a history professor at California State University, unconvincingly argues that President Harry Truman, in collusion with Secretary of State George Marshall and Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal, fabricated the Soviet Union's perceived military aggressiveness towards the West. According to Kofsky, this trumped-up ``war scare'' was a great success for the Truman administration, for it frightened Congress into approving the Marshall Plan, saved the U.S. aviation industry from bankruptcy and brought about a quantum leap in defense spending. Truman deserves condemnation, the author maintains, for establishing a permanent war economy ``that now serves primarily to accelerate the rate at which the quality of life in the United States declines.'' Kofsky's perspective on the origins of the Cold War is questionable in its ready condemnations of Truman and explanations of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations under Stalin. (Aug.)
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