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Historiography on the Origins of the Cold War
Historiography on the Origins of the Cold War
The cold war, who what where when why
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The Cycles of American History by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
The book The Cycles of American History by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. is a very interesting book about the history of America. The book was published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. The author Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., graduate and professor of history from Harvard College class of 1938, is the son of the famous historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. Arthur Jr. is known for his books about U.S. presidents and their policies. He served as Special Assistant to the President in John F. Kennedy's administration and He coined the term Imperial Presidency during the Nixon administration . Schlesinger was known to be a harsh critic of totalitarian regimes and fellow travelers along with unregulated capitalism. In the book The Cycles of American History he presents an interesting case on the origins of the Cold War and the events that surrounded it.
Schlesinger uses two essays to illustrate his point and the change in attitude about the Cold War. He uses “Origins of the Cold War” which was published in Foreign Affairs in October 1967 . The other essay used is “The Cold War Revisited” which was published in the New York Review of Books on October 25, 1979 . In “Origins of the Cold War” the author explains what happen at the start of the Cold War. “The Cold War in its original form was a presumably moral antagonism, arising in the wake of the Second World War, between two rigidly hostile blocs, one lead by the Soviet Union, the other by the United States.” He starts off with his reasons on why the Cold War started in the first place. It was originally about morals and ideologies but it quickly escalated into an arms race, where both belligerents could easily wipe each other off the map. To he starts off with different views of the Cold War.
The author mentions about the Cold War revisionist views as the author says “In the United States (there are no signs, alas, of this in the Soviet Union), represent what American historians call “revisionism” – that is, a readiness to challenge official explanations.” He goes on to say that “It is useful to remember that, on the whole, past exercises in revisionism have failed to stick.” Though the he attacks revisions and notes its failures he then says that “But this does not mean that one should deplore the rise of Cold War revisionism.
Crockatt, Richard. The fifty years war : the United States and the Soviet Union in world politics, 1941-1991. London; New York; Routledge, 1995.
A war does not necessarily require physical weapons to fight. From 1947 to 1991, military tension and ideological conflicts held place. Cold War is defined as a state of political hostility existing between countries, characterized by threats, violent propaganda, subversive activities, and other measures short of open warfare, in particular. The causes of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union were the mutual distrust that had taken place in World War II, intense rivalry between the two super powers, and conflicting ideologies. The two superpowers differed in views of political and economic principles and were eager to spread their ideologies to other countries.
Within this controversial topic, two authors provide their sides of the story to whom is to blame and/or responsible for the “Cold War.” Authors Arnold A. Offner and John Lewis Gaddis duck it out in this controversial situation as each individual lead the readers to believe a certain aspect by divulging certain persuading information. However, although both sides have given historical data as substance for their claim, it is nothing more than a single sided personal perception of that particular piece of information; thus, leaving much room for interpretations by the reader/s. Finding the ...
Discussions of the causes of the Cold War are often divisive, creating disparate ideological camps that focus the blame in different directions depending on the academic’s political disposition. One popular argument places the blame largely on the American people, whose emphasis on “strength over compromise” and their deployment of the atomic bomb in the Second World War’s Pacific theatre apparently functioned as two key catalysts to the conflict between US and Soviet powers. This revisionist approach minimizes Stalin’s forceful approach and history of violent leadership throughout World War 2, and focuses instead on President Harry Truman’s apparent insensitivity to “reasonable Soviet security anxieties” in his quest to impose “American interests on the world.” Revisionist historians depict President Truman as a “Cold War monger,” whose unjustified political use of the atomic bomb and ornery diplomatic style forced Russia into the Cold War to oppose the spread of a looming capitalist democratic monopoly. In reality, Truman’s responsibility for the Cold War and the atomic bomb drop should be minimized.
During the late 1940's and the 1950's, the Cold War became increasingly tense. Each side accused the other of wanting to rule the world (Walker 388). Each side believed its political and economic systems were better than the other's. Each strengthened its armed forces. Both sides viewed the Cold War as a dispute between right and wron...
Gaddis, John Lewis. “We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History.” Taking Sides: Clashing Views On Controversial Issues in United States History. Ed. Larry Madaras and James M. SoRelle. 14th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 302-308.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Gregory, Ross. A. Cold War America: 1946 to 1990. New York, NY: Facts on File, 2003. McQuaid, Kim.
... sides as having been the cause of the struggle. In evaluating the historiography of the origins of the Cold War, I deem the post-revisionist account to be the most convincing of all those assessments offered thus far.
The Cold War was an argument between the Soviet Union and the United States of America after WWII. During WWII the USA and the Soviet Union were allies fighting a common cause: Adolph Hitler who was attempting to overthrow the surrounding countries. Although the USA and the Soviet Union were allies, the relationship between the two countries was very tense (What Was). Neither country trusted the other. After WWII their relationship became even more tense due to the building of new weapons capable of destroying entire countries.
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 History, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, and The Cold War: A New History. Dr. Gaddis received his PhD from the University of Texas in 1968; he currently is on a leave of absence, but he is a professor at Yale . At the University, his focus is Cold War history. Gaddis is one of the few men who have actually done a complete biography of George Kennan, and Gaddis even won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012.
Outline of Essay About the Origins of the Cold War OUTLINE: Introduction- 1. Definition of ‘Cold War’ and the Powers involved 2. Perceived definition of ‘start of Cold War’ 3. Iron Curtain Speech, Truman Doctrine and Berlin Blockade as significant events that caused strife between both powers, but which triggering off the start of the Cold War Body- 1. Iron Curtain Speech (1946) - A warning of Soviet influence beyond the acknowledged Eastern Europe - Churchill’s belief that the idea of a balance in power does not appeal to the Soviets - Wants Western democracies to stand together in prevention of further
Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signified, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold but not clothed." There was never a war that this idea can be more correct applied to than the Cold War. According to noted author and Cold War historian Walter Lippman, the Cold War can be defined as a state of tension between states, which behave with great distrust and hostility towards each other, but do not resort to violence. The Cold War encompasses a period from the end of the Second World War (WWII), in 1945, to the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1989. It also encompassed the Korean and Vietnam Wars and other armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, that, essentially, were not wars for people but instead for territories and ideologies. "Nevertheless, like its predecessors, the Cold War has been a worldwide power contest in which one expanding power has threatened to make itself predominant, and in which other powers have banded together in a defensive coalition to frustrate it---as was the case before 1815, as was the case in 1914-1918 as was the case from 1939-1945" (Halle 9). From this power contest, the Cold War erupted.
Tomkinson, John L. (2008) The Cold War: Themes in Twentieth Century World History for the International Baccalaureate. 3rd edition. Athens: Anagnosis.
The book, Blowback by Chalmers Johnson, is organized leading with the introduction, then the prologue, then the body of the book broken into ten chapters, then a section called further reading, then the notes, and lastly the index. It is not broken up into parts. This book is directed for a well-educated audience with a high-level vocabulary; if the reader does not have a high-level vocabulary, the book will be confusing, unless said reader has a dictionary at hand. The tone of Blowback is tense. This matches the subject of the book, which heeds a warning to Americans. Blowback is written as a revealing historical recount of America’s actions after the Cold War, especially those in East Asia and the Middle East. The author states the definition of blowback: “the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people.” Johnson argues that the United States
By another account, the Cold War began in 1917 with the Bolshevik Revolution, and ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, having been a conflict between Bolshevism and Democracy. The Cold War got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other in such a “hot war”, nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly. They played havoc with conflicts in different parts of the world. They used words as weapons.