Table of Contents

The Cold WarPreface
List of Maps

Prologue: The View Forward
I. The Return Of Fear
II. Deathboats And Lifeboats
III. Command Versus Spontaneity
IV. The Emergence Of Autonomy
V. The Recovery Of Equity
VI. Actors
VII. The Triumph Of Hope
Epilogue: The View Back

Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of History of Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, including On Grand Strategy, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 (1972); Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security (1982); The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (1987); We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (1997); The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (2002); and Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (2004).

Reviews

“Outstanding . . . The most accessible distillation of that conflict yet written.” —The Boston Globe

“Energetically written and lucid, it makes an ideal introduction to the subject.” —The New York Times

“A fresh and admirably concise history . . . Gaddis’s mastery of the material, his fluent style and eye for the telling anecdote make his new work a pleasure.” —The Economist

If it's difficult to imagine a history of the Cold War that can be described as thrilling, that should add more luster to Yale historian Gaddis's crown. Gaddis, who's written some half-dozen studies of the Cold War, delivers an utterly engrossing account of Soviet-U.S. relations from WWII to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. The ideological clash between democratic capitalism and communism predated the war, of course, but the emergence of nuclear weapons created a new political situation. Suddenly, it was easy to imagine total war that might destroy not only the enemy but also the victor. Gaddis assesses what he sees as the positive contributions Thatcher, Reagan and Pope John Paul II made to furthering the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. and concludes with a sympathetic portrait of Gorbachev; his refusal to use force ultimately cost him both communism and his country, but, says Gaddis, it also made him "the most deserving recipient ever of the Nobel Peace Prize." The interpretations on offer are not startlingly original-we've read this before, mostly in other books by Gaddis himself-but a new, concise narration was Gaddis's aim here, and he succeeds royally. His synthesis is sure to reign with general history readers and in undergraduate classrooms. 8 maps not seen by PW. (Dec. 29) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

"Outstanding . . . The most accessible distillation of that conflict yet written." -The Boston Globe

"Energetically written and lucid, it makes an ideal introduction to the subject." -The New York Times

"A fresh and admirably concise history . . . Gaddis's mastery of the material, his fluent style and eye for the telling anecdote make his new work a pleasure." -The Economist