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Schools of thoughts on the origin of the cold war
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The cold war can be seen as an event in which there are many conflicting ideologies about how it started. Some of the perspectives that will be analyzed in this essay are the views of the revisionists, post revisionists and traditionalists. For more than a decade, various historians have challenged the Cold War origins.
The Revisionist viewpoint suggests that the US was not an innocent bystander and that they were mainly focused on expansionism and the entrepreneurial capitalism that had characterized the US history. The leading American Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis argues that there was “a new consensus emerging – the post revisionist one” (Leffler and Painter 1994 ). According to this consensus, the United States had “become an imperial nation after World War Two” (Leffler and Painter 1994 ) but that the American officials weren’t inspired by capitalist greed or fears of another depression. Gaddis makes a point that “the United States was not a confident power in 1945 and actually had to reshape many of its domestic priorities and institutions to deal with the competition of the Soviets”. (Pipe 2007)
In addition, Gaddis outlines three important lessons or ideas in his book. The first being that during the Cold War, “military strength ceased to be the defining characteristic of power itself, which it had been for the past five centuries”. Secondly, he argues that although “the USSR, China and several countries had authoritarian governments in 1948 and that during the latter part of the 20th century, communism fell out of favor”. Lastly he argues that the Cold War era witnessed “globalization of democracy which is illustrated by the rapid increase in number of democracies by the end of the 20th century”. (Malin and Joh...
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... War as being caused by the due to Stalin and the drive of Soviet expansionism. The Revisionist School of historians “placed the blame on President Truman and the demands of capitalism challenged this viewpoint” (Pipe 2007). Kennan, argues that the Cold War was not to “to blame the Soviets but to awaken American policy makers to the nature of the Soviet threat in the postwar world”. ( (T. J. White 2012)
In conclusion, the various historians argue that both sides were responsible for the beginning of the Cold War. The revisionist approach argues that the origins of the Cold War were controversial and also remained very important in understanding the origins of the Cold War. The post revisionist viewpoint argues that the Cold War was caused by the Soviet Union due to the rise of the Bolshevik government. Overall, both sides can be seen as the cause of the Cold War.
The alliance formed between the US and USSR during the second world war was not strong enough to overcome the decades of uneasiness which existed between the two ideologically polar opposite countries. With their German enemy defeated, the two emerging nuclear superpowers no longer had any common ground on which to base a political, economical, or any other type of relationship. Tensions ran high as the USSR sought to expand Soviet influence throughout Europe while the US and other Western European nations made their opposition to such actions well known. The Eastern countries already under Soviet rule yearned for their independence, while the Western countries were willing to go to great lengths to limit Soviet expansion. "Containment of 'world revolution' became the watchword of American foreign policy throughout the 1950s a...
During the 20th century, the rise of communism sparked rage in people throughout the world. More towards the end of the 1900's the fall of communism and dictatorships was just the beginning of what would eventually be a large democratic change for several countries. 1989: Democratic Revolutions at the Cold War's End, speaks about the change brought to several different countries from the 1980's-1990's and plans to show "the global transformations that marked the end of the cold war and shaped the era in which we live"(Pg V). During the cold war, communist had power and control over a large area and spread communism throughout several continents. This book specifically hits on six different studies of where communism and dictatorship affected these areas and what they did to stop it. Poland, Philippines, Chile, South Africa, Ukraine, and China throughout the end of the 20th century created revolutionary movements which brought them all one step closer to freeing themselves and creating democratic change.
The post-war world left the Soviets and the United States in an ideological power struggle. The origin of the cold war is hard to pinpoint. There were several issues and disagreements that led to it. The political differences between the 2 nations were absolute opposites. America was a democracy, a system that allows its citizens to choose the political party in which runs the government. The Communists were led by one of the most vicious dictators in human history, Joseph Stalin.
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...
Odd Arne Westad, Director of the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, explains how the Cold War “shaped the world we live in today — its politics, economics, and military affairs“ (Westad, The Global Cold War, 1). Furthermore, Westad continues, “ the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created foundations” for most of the historic conflicts we see today. The Cold War, asserts Westad, centers on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union — escalates to antipathy and conflict that in the end helped oust one world power while challenging the other. This supplies a universal understanding on the Cold War (Westad, The Global Cold War, 1). After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union opposed each other over the expansion of their power.
The Soviet Union began to view the United States as a threat to communism, and the United States began to view the Soviet Union as a threat to democracy. On March 12, 1947, Truman gave a speech in which he argued that the United States should support nations trying to resist Soviet imperialism. Truman and his advisors created a foreign policy that consisted of giving reconstruction aid to Europe, and preventing Russian expansionism. These foreign policy decisions, as well as his involvement in the usage of the atomic bomb, raise the question of whether or not the Cold War can be blamed on Truman. Supporting the view that Truman was responsible for the Cold War, Arnold Offner argues that Truman’s parochialism and nationalism caused him to make contrary foreign policy decisions without regard to other nations, which caused the intense standoff between the Soviet Union and America that became the Cold War (Offner 291)....
There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historians. So wide is the range of the historiography of the origins of the Cold War that is has been said "the Cold War has also spawned a war among historians, a controversy over how the Cold War got started, whether or not it was inevitable, and (above all) who bears the main responsibility for starting it" (Hammond 4). There are three main schools of thought in the historiography: the traditional view, known alternatively as the orthodox or liberal view, which finds fault lying mostly with the Russians and deems security concerns to be the root cause of the Cold War; the revisionist view, which argues that it is, in fact, the United States and the West to blame for the Cold War and not the Russians, and cites economic open-door interests for spawning the Cold War; finally, the post-revisionist view which finds fault with both sides in the conflict and points to issues raised both by the traditionalists as well as the revisionists for combining to cause the Cold War. While strong arguments are made by historians writing from the traditionalist school, as well as those writing from the revisionist school, I claim that the viewpoint of the post-revisionists is the most accurate in describing the origins of the Cold War.
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
Lafeber, W. (2002), America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2000. 9th edn. New-York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Today historians generally place the most of the responsibility of the Cold War on both the Soviet Union and the United States. Because of its desire to dominate the world under Communism, the Soviets got most of the blame anyways. The United States, however, did get some of the blame for when the Cold War turned “Hot,” such as when the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Accordingly, there is evidence that either side can be blamed just as much as the other for the Cold War.
There facts and reasons on why the Cold War happened. The Cold War had two sides. Those two sides were capitalism and communism. Capitalism is that business is owned by private people or firms. It was a free economy that allowed any profit he or she makes is reward for hard work. It also allows that any person should be free to start a business and employ people. Communism is another form of economy. Everything is run by the state and should be run by the government on behalf of the people. No private person is allowed to profit from the work from other citizens. Communism is a controlled economy. All profits don’t go into the pocket of one owner; the pr...
The revisionists see the motives behind U.S. foreign policy as inherently linked to the needs of capitalism. When looking at different historians' point of views, one can see how the Cold War was seen as the only need for self-preservation that had caused the two countries to sink in their differences. However, many of the tensions that existed in the Cold War can be attributed to Stalin's policy of Soviet expansion. Stalin's foreign policies could have contributed to the increased tension between countries in the Cold War. The aim of his policies was to take advantage of the military situation in Post-War Europe to strengthen Russia's influence.