Rating: 
Summary: up to date and interesting
Review: a really useful book for anyone interested in the cold war. i have used this book for 2 years of study. quite humourosly written in places too. good for students or those just generally interested.
Rating:
Summary: up to date and interesting
Review: a really useful book for anyone interested in the cold war. i have used this book for 2 years of study. quite humourosly written in places too. good for students or those just generally interested.
Rating: 
Summary: Is this Cold War History "New"?
Review: Author John Lewis Gaddis taught for many years at Ohio University and is now on the faculty at Yale. He is a long-time, thoughtful analyst of the great confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union which dominated world events for nearly five decades World War II. Since the end of the Cold War, Gaddis has had the opportunity to survey the English-language literature, as well as documents which, by the mid-1990s, were beginning to "trickle" out of the "other side" of the Cold War, to determine which aspects of the history of the Cold War, if any, require reassessment. Although this book primarily discusses the "high Cold War," the period from the end of World War II through the Cuban missile crisis, it is an important contribution to the literature.Gaddis begins with Alexis de Tocqueville's intriguing observation, made in 1835, that "[t]here are now two great nations in the world...the Russians and the Anglo-Americans." Gaddis observes that there were several historical sources of "Russian-American antagonism" which predated the "power vacuum" that separated the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War. More important were the attitudes of the countries in 1945: the U.S. was determined, according to Gaddis, to "seek power in the postwar world" Stalin, the "Soviet leader, too sought security," but Gaddis asserts that, to Stalin, "[n]ational security had come to mean personal security." The role of Stalin in the Cold War's origins is central to Gaddis's thesis. According to Gaddis, "the nature of the post-World War II international system" was characteristic of empire. In Gaddis's view, Stalin fused "Marxist internationalism with tsarist imperialism" and this prompted the Soviet Union's territorial acquisitions and establishment of spheres of influence." For the United States, according to Gaddis, "Pearl Harbor was...the defining event for the American empire," and its post-war goals were to maintain "a substantial peacetime military establishment and a string of bases around the world from which to resist aggression if it should ever occur." Gaddis writes: "One empire arose...by invitation; the other by imposition." According to Gaddis, "the Cold War through the end of 1948 remained primarily a European conflict," as a result of which "the Cold War's sudden expansion into Asia in 1949-50 caught everyone by surprise." According to Gaddis, "Korea turned out to be the most bitterly contested of all Cold War battlegrounds." Gaddis observes that the origins of the conflict remain complicated and controversial, but, writing about Stalin, Gaddis asserts that "the normally cautious Soviet leader" authorized the attack on South Korea as a result of "Stalin's new optimism about the prospects for international revolution." Nevertheless, according to Gaddis, when Stalin and Mao Zedong met to discuss the prospects for war in Korea, "Stalin warned the Koreans "not to 'expect great assistance and support from the Soviet Union, because it had more important challenges to meet than the Korean problem.'" Gaddis remarks: "Stalin...was determined to have the Chinese confront the Americans but at the same time so determined not to have the Soviet Union do so that he would have sacrificed North Korea altogether had Mao refused to intervene." Gaddis writes: "By the time Truman left office and Stalin died, early in 1953, the basic patterns of the Cold War were firmly established. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union would accept the other's vision of the postwar world....Cold War history is, at least in part, the story of how what was thought to be unendurable became endurable; how order and stability, if rarely justice, evolved from bitter and sustained rivalry." Gaddis asserts that the "German question...did more than anything else to delay" the Cold War's settlement. By the middle 1950s, Gaddis suggests, the "continued division of Germany was...a convenient, perhaps even a comfortable option for the Americans, the Russians, and their respective allies." While the Cold War settled into a comfort level in Germany, it threatened to ignite nuclear war in Cuba. Gaddis asserts that, after Khrushchev came to power, he "hoped to improve relations with the United States," and "Castro's insurgency had attracted little attention and no support from Moscow." But Khrushchev seized the opportunity and by July 1960, according to Gaddis, the Soviet leader "was openly threatening to the United States with a Soviet missile attack if it should try to invade Cuba." That was mere bluster, but the missile crisis in October 1962 brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Korean War. Gaddis asks: "What is there new to say about the Cuban missile crisis?" Despite numerous "revisions and reconsiderations," Gaddis asserts that "the central place the Cuban missile crisis occupies in Cold War history" has not changed. The missiles were removed in what is generally regarded as a "great victory" for the United States, but Khrushchev later insisted that the crisis was a triumph for the Soviet Union because it was "able to extract from Kennedy a promise that neither America nor any of her allies would invade Cuba." In his concluding chapter on "New Cold War History,"Gaddis acknowledges that he is offering "first impressions," which he states as hypotheses. Perhaps the most interesting is Gaddis view that "the United States and the Soviet Union built empires after World War II, although not of the same kind." With respect to responsibility for the Cold War, Gaddis writes that "the 'new' history brings us back to an old answer: that "as long as Stalin was running the Soviet Union a cold war was unavoidable." That accounts for the Cold War's origins, but it does not explain why it continued for over 35 years after Stalin died. As Gaddis observes: "Tocqueville had predicted bipolarity but not necessarily hostility." What was the principal cause of the bitter hostility essential to the Cold War? Until that is understood, there will be plenty of work for Gaddis and other practitioners of the "new" history of the Cold War.
Rating:
Summary: Astounding scholarship and graceful writing
Review: Dr. Gaddis is one of the finest historians of his generation. This book tackles the hard work of looking at the Cold War in light of the flood of documents now available from the Soviet archives. It is a work of deep scholarship and Gaddis writes with style and clarity. Anyone interested in foreign affairs should read this boo
Rating: 
Summary: the press is out and Yakoff smirnof loves this book.
Review: Hallow muh american frends, in sovet younyun we don't watch t.v instead weh watch uncule boris shave neck, is this great country or what? not only can you watch uncule boris shave neck but you can opt to watch him doo et in espanol from privacy of own home now thats great country.Don't forget folks to chech out mie won man show entitled "Yakety-Yak off, dont come back-off" playin all through the months of may to september right here in byootiful branson missourri, where my good friend john gaddis will be opening for me with his most hillarious act ever,a dramatic reading of chapters 4 through 8 set to a gritty and most decidedly funky beat provided by his backup performers RACKET. They use brooms and tea kettles as instruments, forget perestroika now thats great country.
Rating:
Summary: Solid presentation of the facts of Soviet activities
Review: Having grown up during the Cold War, I have always been interested in what was actually going on. It is not that we were only lied to during the Cold War. That would be a misrepresentation of the reality of those times. Rather, there were many voices proclaiming different realities to be true. There were the far right John Birchers, there was the far left Communist Party of America and the organs of the Soviet Union (Tass and Pravda) and everything in between.
What is now called the "mainstream press" was really all there was back in those days (the organs of the extreme organizations were decidedly small circulation underground voices) and these big voices moved more left as the years passed by beginning with the Alger Hiss case. It was not until the Soviet archives were opened and the Venona documents were declassified that incontrovertible evidence forced the left to admit that Hiss was indeed working for the Soviets.
This book begins with the end of World War Two through the Cuban Missle Crisis. It provides fascinating insight into what the Soviet Archives actually confirm about those decades. We now know that the Soviets had clear designs on Europe and thought they had Germany in their pocket. Except for the Marshall Plan, they very well might have succeeded. We know that it took Stalin's go ahead to start the Korean War, and we know much more about the Soviet thinking leading up to and during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Prof. Gaddis provides a fascinating story and solid reporting and incisive analysis. I enjoyed this book a great deal. Some may wonder why it is so important to clarify these past events. It is simply because so many voices were wrong and many of them were consciously trying to obfuscate the truth or were being used by those supporting the interests of the Soviet Union. They did so for many different reasons. Nevertheless, they were working against the interests of the United States (of course, some of them then and today say that their actions are, in fact, working for the interests of the United States because they see their socialist (or progressive) vision as in the interests of the USA).
Some may find the facts reported in this great book to be difficult to accept because of the conflict with their ideology. I do feel sorry for them. Prof. Gaddis does a solid job in presenting reality in a way that is hard to gainsay. It is very hard to spin away from the conclusions presented in this important book.
Rating:
Summary: Nicely Written Book
Review: If anyone is in New Haven during the fall semester, they should definitely try to drop in on Gaddis' Cold War class for undergraduates - he is an amazing speaker with a very deadpan sense of humor. He also is passionate about Cold War History, and it shows through in this book - this was probably the most thoughtful and enjoyable book to read among a course reading list that has been described as a "best seller". The book is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of the Cold War, but a reflection on the major themes, causes, and ramifications of a war that polarized much of the 20th century world. Yes, Gaddis is a Reagan fan, but a very objective one if you hear him speak about it. And while he is very pro-USA, he remains very objective, for the most part, when describing the virtues and the faults of both sides. The book as a whole is very well written, with elegant and thoughtful prose, and stands as a powerful assessment of the Cold War.
Rating:
Summary: Nicely Written Book
Review: If anyone is in New Haven during the fall semester, they should definitely try to drop in on Gaddis' Cold War class for undergraduates - he is an amazing speaker with a very deadpan sense of humor. He also is passionate about Cold War History, and it shows through in this book - this was probably the most thoughtful and enjoyable book to read among a course reading list that has been described as a "best seller". The book is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of the Cold War, but a reflection on the major themes, causes, and ramifications of a war that polarized much of the 20th century world. Yes, Gaddis is a Reagan fan, but a very objective one if you hear him speak about it. And while he is very pro-USA, he remains very objective, for the most part, when describing the virtues and the faults of both sides. The book as a whole is very well written, with elegant and thoughtful prose, and stands as a powerful assessment of the Cold War.
Rating: 
Summary: I Now Know That Gaddis Needs To Stay Away From History
Review: If this book is one of your options for a history class and you have other options, choose again please!. it is for your sake i say this. this book has the hardest thesis to pic out of any history book i have read. i find myself wondering "john lewis gaddis" how in the world did he end up involved with a history book at oxford press. he cant seem to stay on his subject of "the cold war" i give this book 2 stars because its sentance structures are not as horible as many history books. john lewis gaddis has potencial as an author as long as he stays away from history books. if you are not intending to read this book for you education, but rather for the plesure, i advise you to look some where else...
Rating:
Summary: Right -Winger Gaddis Does Not Have All The Answers.
Review: In the 1970s and '80s John Lewis Gaddis established a distinguished reputation as the leader of the post-revisionist school on the origins of the Cold War. Since then, sadly, his writing has been characterised by a drift towards the misguided stance of the Reaganite Right. In his latest work he has made a commendable early attempt to analyise the substantive new resources made avaliable from the newly declassified resources made accessible by the declassifacation of the Soviet archives. Yet his title 'We Now Know' (a notion repeatedly asserted throughout this work) claims far too much. The new evidence has contributed to the debate on the Cold War but does not provide all the answers - indeed how could they have done? A radically different set of conclusions could be drawn from the archives than those that Gaddis's deeply conservative perspective leads him to. This is a useful contribution to the debate on the Cold War, therefore, but nobody should be deluded into thinking this is a definitive work. 'We Now Know More' would have been a more accurate - if less catchy - title. We cannot expect all the ongoing arguments on the Cold War to be settled or stifled at a stroke and the debate has a long way to run yet.
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