book review on cold war

• NONFICTION BOOKS
• BEST NONFICTION 2023
• BEST NONFICTION 2024
• Historical Biographies
• The Best Memoirs and Autobiographies
• Philosophical Biographies
• World War 2
• World History
• American History
• British History
• Chinese History
• Russian History
• Ancient History (up to 500)
• Medieval History (500-1400)
• Military History
• Art History
• Travel Books
• Ancient Philosophy
• Contemporary Philosophy
• Ethics & Moral Philosophy
• Great Philosophers
• Social & Political Philosophy
• Classical Studies
• New Science Books
• Maths & Statistics
• Popular Science
• Physics Books
• Climate Change Books
• How to Write
• English Grammar & Usage
• Books for Learning Languages
• Linguistics
• Political Ideologies
• Foreign Policy & International Relations
• American Politics
• British Politics
• Religious History Books
• Mental Health
• Neuroscience
• Child Psychology
• Film & Cinema
• Opera & Classical Music
• Behavioural Economics
• Development Economics
• Economic History
• Financial Crisis
• World Economies
• Investing Books
• Artificial Intelligence/AI Books
• Data Science Books
• Sex & Sexuality
• Death & Dying
• Food & Cooking
• Sports, Games & Hobbies
• FICTION BOOKS
• BEST NOVELS 2024
• BEST FICTION 2023
• New Literary Fiction
• World Literature
• Literary Criticism
• Literary Figures
• Classic English Literature
• American Literature
• Comics & Graphic Novels
• Fairy Tales & Mythology
• Historical Fiction
• Crime Novels
• Science Fiction
• Short Stories
• South Africa
• United States
• Arctic & Antarctica
• Afghanistan
• Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
• Netherlands
• Kids Recommend Books for Kids
• High School Teachers Recommendations
• Prizewinning Kids' Books
• Popular Series Books for Kids
• BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS (ALL AGES)
• Ages Baby-2
• Books for Teens and Young Adults
• THE BEST SCIENCE BOOKS FOR KIDS
• BEST KIDS' BOOKS OF 2023
• BEST BOOKS FOR TEENS OF 2023
• Best Audiobooks for Kids
• Environment
• Best Books for Teens of 2023
• Best Kids' Books of 2023
• Political Novels
• New History Books
• New Historical Fiction
• New Biography
• New Memoirs
• New World Literature
• New Economics Books
• New Climate Books
• New Math Books
• New Philosophy Books
• New Psychology Books
• New Physics Books
• THE BEST AUDIOBOOKS
• Actors Read Great Books
• Books Narrated by Their Authors
• Best Audiobook Thrillers
• Best History Audiobooks
• Nobel Literature Prize
• Booker Prize (fiction)
• Baillie Gifford Prize (nonfiction)
• Financial Times (nonfiction)
• Wolfson Prize (history)
• Royal Society (science)
• Pushkin House Prize (Russia)
• Walter Scott Prize (historical fiction)
• Arthur C Clarke Prize (sci fi)
• The Hugos (sci fi & fantasy)
• Audie Awards (audiobooks)

Make Your Own List

Nonfiction Books » History Books » Contemporary History (1945-)

The best books on the cold war, recommended by archie brown.

WINNER OF THE 2021 PUSHKIN HOUSE PRIZE

The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War by Archie Brown

American military and economic superiority cannot explain why the Cold War came to an end in the late 1980s and early 1990s. According to the historian Archie Brown , you need to accept the primacy of politics and human agency both in the USSR and the West. He chooses five books to understand the Cold War and offers some broader reflections on the qualities of good political leadership—then and now.

Interview by Eve Gerber

The Cold War: A World History by Odd Arne Westad

For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War by Melvyn P Leffler

Russia and the Idea of the West by Robert English

The Enigma of 1989: The USSR and the Liberation of Eastern Europe Jacques Lévesque (trans. Keith Martin)

Reagan and Gorbachev by Jack Matlock

1 The Cold War: A World History by Odd Arne Westad

2 for the soul of mankind: the united states, the soviet union, and the cold war by melvyn p leffler, 3 russia and the idea of the west by robert english, 4 the enigma of 1989: the ussr and the liberation of eastern europe jacques lévesque (trans. keith martin), 5 reagan and gorbachev by jack matlock.

A s an internationally influential expert on Russian politics and the author of nearly 20 books, you’ve shaped our understanding of the Cold War since the sixties. Before we delve into the subject, could you put on a historiographer’s hat and tell us about the forces that affected the way the history of the Cold War has been written?

Thus, there are authors who held that change within the Soviet system was impossible until it happened and that the Soviet Union would never accept the independence of the countries of Eastern Europe until it did. After these things occurred, what had previously been impossible became inevitable. The Soviet Union simply could not keep up, we were told, so they had no alternative but to cave in. That begs so many questions, among them why Russia, minus the fourteen other republics which made up the Soviet Union, is so much less of a co-operative international partner now than it was in the late 1980s.

In Russia itself, there is, paradoxically, a partial convergence with American triumphalist accounts of the Cold War’s ending. The fashionable contemporary Russian line is that the United States did win the Cold War, but they did so because the United States was determined to destroy the Soviet Union and because Gorbachev ignored the advice of the Soviet military-industrial complex, betrayed Russian national interests and was a weak leader. Some Russian writers go so far as to call him a traitor.

Contemporary intellectual fashion and political conformity can, of course, influence the way history is written. There are authors on both sides of the old Cold War divide who transcend these national (and at times nationalist) narratives, with their simplifications and distortions, but too many who do not.

The Rise and Fall of Communism , your superb topic survey, had a huge impact. What did you set out to do by writing it?

My aim was to produce a thoroughly researched but readable history of Communism from its intellectual origins to the 21st century, showing the varied ways in which Communist systems came into being in different places, why they lasted for as long they did, and why and how they came to an end, as they have done almost everywhere. The most important of the few remaining Communist states is, of course, China. It remains highly authoritarian but, in important respects, it constitutes a hybrid system. The political power structure characteristic of Communism has been preserved. But the economy is vastly different. If Marx, Lenin or (more to the point) Mao could see it, they would be horrified by the extent to which a Communist Party has turned to the market and allowed the growth of a substantial private sector.

“There is no shortage of writing on the Cold War which is highly colored by national preconceptions and illusions”

I might add that I was quite well prepared for the task of writing The Rise and Fall of Communism . I had been teaching courses on the comparative study of Communism, first in Glasgow and then for 34 years at Oxford. I had also a lot of experience of living and talking with people in Communist countries (at one point I spent an entire year in Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union).

The Human Factor , the title of your latest publication, is a phrase Gorbachev used frequently. Please tell us about the history of the phrase and your book.

The fact that Gorbachev often used the term ‘the human factor’ ( chelovecheskiy faktor in Russian) was one reason for choosing that title. It’s worth noting that in emphasizing the importance of the individual in Soviet society and the significance of the human relations between leaders on opposite sides of the Cold War divide, he was, as in so many other respects, departing from Marxism-Leninism and Soviet orthodoxy.

But the main reason why I think the title is apt is that individual leaders really were of decisive importance for the Cold War ending when it did, peacefully, and through negotiation. That Ronald Reagan preferred the judgement of George Shultz to that of Caspar Weinberger on American engagement with the Soviet Union really mattered, and that Margaret Thatcher was the foreign leader whose judgement he most respected was also of huge significance. She reinforced his inclination to negotiate with his Soviet counterpart and helped to persuade him that Gorbachev was a very different kind of Soviet leader from his predecessors and one who was serious about changing the system he had inherited. She was a notable counterweight to those in the Reagan Administration who remained unconvinced that anything more than cosmetic change was occurring in Moscow.

Most important of all, none of the realistic alternative Soviet leaders to Mikhail Gorbachev would have tolerated, still less promoted, freedom of speech, the legitimation of dissent, and contested elections in the Soviet Union or have risked raising expectations in Eastern Europe. Those who think that any Soviet leader would have had to pursue policies similar to Gorbachev’s because of military or economic necessity are profoundly mistaken.

Making your list of five books about the Cold War will be an honor for the authors listed. Before we talk about their books, please tell me about the criteria you used in making your choices.

For Americans, the US-Soviet rivalry was the central feature of the Cold War. The rest of the world, too, was enormously impacted by that relationship. If it had ended in all-out nuclear war, the very survival of humankind would have been in jeopardy. Not surprisingly, then, two of the five books I pick out focus on the US-Soviet relationship (those by Leffler and Matlock). But the Cold War affected every part of the globe, albeit in varying degrees. The real fighting took place not on the territory of either superpower, but mainly in Asia. So it is important to see the Cold War in the round which is what Westad’s book does. Nevertheless, the most visible manifestation of the Cold War throughout its entire history was the division of Europe. Therefore, a book which focuses on Eastern Europe, and on how the division of the European continent was overcome (Lévesque) is a central part of the story.

“At times of high tension during the Cold War, the world came closer to catastrophic nuclear war than most people realized at the time”

Let’s begin with Odd Arne Westad’s The Cold War: A World History . How did this book expand our understanding of the Cold War?

The book’s strength is its breadth. There are some who look back to the Cold War period with a certain nostalgia, thinking this was a time of prudent and disciplined rivalry in which there were rules of the game regulating US-Soviet relations. There is some truth in that last point, but it is also true that at times only good luck averted a devastating nuclear war neither side wanted.

What Westad’s book describes is the Cold War as a whole, not just in the places on which most studies have focused—the United States, the Soviet Union and Europe—but also in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He challenges the view that this was a ‘long peace’. It was not a long peace for Koreans and Vietnamese, nor indeed for the Americans who were killed in those wars far from their native shores. Not many scholars know both Russian and Chinese, write in English, and have a native language which is different again. Westad, a Norwegian, is one such scholar, and his book has the additional merit of being highly readable.

Westad makes clear that the Cold War shaped politics in every part of the world. How can we relay, to recent generations, the reach and influence of the Cold War conflict? Why is it important that we never forget?

I’ve touched on that already. At times of high tension during the Cold War, the world came closer to catastrophic nuclear war than most people realized at the time. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is the best-known example. If Nikita Khrushchev had not been prepared to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba, and if President Kennedy had been less patient, or unwilling to make concessions of his own, we might not be here having this conversation today.

For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War  by Bancroft Prize-winning historian Melvin Leffler is your next selection. Please tell us about it.

I’ve chosen books which combine sound scholarship with readability. Melvyn Leffler’s book admirably meets those criteria. He covers the Cold War from beginning to end, but focusing above all on the US-Soviet relationship. He is particularly strong on the American side of the story, having done a great deal of fruitful archival research, including the archives of every relevant Presidential Library. He combines that with wide reading of the memoirs and of the specialist academic literature. There is a lot of debate on the Cold War, not least on its ending. Leffler’s judgements on the contentious issues are among the most solidly based and wisest.

In your chapter for The Cambridge History of the Cold War and at greater length in your new book, you argue that Gorbachev played the most crucial part in ending the Cold War. Why do you maintain that?

There is a widespread view that the Soviet Union was forced by American military superiority, or by its inability to keep up with the West economically, to concede defeat in the Cold War. Tempting though that is for many in the West to believe, it glides over the fact that when, in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the US had an undoubted military superiority over the Soviet Union, Communism continued to expand. From the early 1970s, the Soviet Union had acquired approximate military parity with the US, and that was still the case in the mid-1980s, Reagan’s increased military spending notwithstanding. Since each military superpower had the means utterly to destroy the other, why should the Soviet side be forced to make concessions at a time of parity which it did not make when it was manifestly the weaker of the two rivals?

Then there is the economic determinist explanation of the Cold War’s ending. While it is true that the Soviet economy lagged behind its Western competitors (and was being overtaken by the newly industrializing Asian countries), it was not in crisis in the mid-1980s. The system remained stable, and the Soviet state could have muddled through economically for decades to come, while maintaining censorship, the highly authoritarian system and the image of the United States as a dangerous enemy (in the face of which citizen unity and eternal vigilance were required).

“While it is true that the Soviet economy lagged behind its Western competitors, it was not in crisis in the mid-1980s”

The economistic argument falls flat because Gorbachev proceeded to give far higher priority to radical political reform (which did nothing to improve the economic performance) than he did to marketization of the economy. He embraced the principle of the market only in his last two years as Soviet leader—as late as 1990—and even then it was in principle only. His intellectual acceptance that a market economy would do more to raise living standards than the centralized command economy could achieve did not lead him to risk the transition to the market, for in the short term this would have added to the country’s economic woes and to popular discontent.

Next you’ve chosen an intellectual history by Robert English. Please tell us about Russia and the Idea of the West.

This book is in one respect the odd one out of the five. It is more of a specialist work. It is well-written, but very detailed in its account of the gradual emergence of new ideas in Soviet small-circulation books and journals long before the perestroika years (1985-1991). These ideas were empowered and radicalized following Gorbachev’s arrival in the Kremlin.

The other books in my list have much to offer specialists, but are consciously aimed at a broader readership. Robert English’s account of how radically new ideas were being developed by a minority of intellectuals within the Communist Party may have too many unfamiliar names and concepts to appeal to many general readers. But what he persuasively contends is little understood by a lot of authors who write on the Cold War, particularly those who think that it was ended by a combination of Ronald Reagan’s military build-up and his belligerent rhetoric, such as describing the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire’, or who imagine that there was cause and effect between his speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (‘Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’) and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount .

The Enigma of 1989 by Canadian political scientist Jacques Lévesque is your next choice. Tell us about it.

Lévesque’s starting-point is that there really is an enigma to be resolved: how was it that something which Western leaders had long accepted was completely non-negotiable for their Soviet counterparts—the continued existence of a bloc in Eastern Europe whose leaders preserved the monopoly of power of the Communist Party and loyally supported Soviet foreign policy—could dissolve in the space of a year at the end of the 1980s? Lévesque conducted many interviews with the leading political actors in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the first half of the 1990s when their memories of recent events were still fresh. His book was first published in French in 1995 and in English translation in 1997.

Although Gorbachev’s strong preference was for a social democratization of the Communist Parties in Eastern Europe, which was the direction in which he was trying to lead his own party, he paid less attention to the Sovietized part of the European continent than he did to Western Europe. He much preferred talking with Western leaders than with the ‘comrades’ in eastern and central Europe. His position was, however, that governments and peoples in Eastern Europe had to sort out their relations, peacefully, for themselves. Those East European Communist leaders who were ready to use force to quell their domestic opposition, if only they could get Soviet approval for a crackdown, not only failed to get it, but received word from Moscow strongly discouraging them from resorting to force.

Gorbachev, in a speech at the UN in December 1988, said that the people of every country had the right to decide for themselves what kind of system they wished to live in, and he characterized the use of force in international relations as obsolete in the nuclear age. In 1989 he remained true to those principles. The surprisingly calm response of Gorbachev and his top foreign policy team to seeing Communist rule cast aside must also be understood, as Lévesque observes, in the context of their social democratization. An important reason why the political transformation of Eastern Europe, which would have seemed like the end of the world to his predecessors, was not viewed in anything like such apocalyptic terms by Gorbachev and his closest associates was because, as Lévesque appositely remarks, the idea of socialism had become for them ‘constantly more open, elastic, and eclectic’.

Why did the collapse of Communism take the world by surprise?

Part of the answer is that ever since Europe was divided at the end of the Second World War, the United States and its allies had taken the view that the Soviet Union would not allow defection from their camp, and that for the West to try to stop them cracking down on stirrings of independence in a client state would be to risk catastrophic nuclear war. Thus, Western countries condemned the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the martial law imposed in Poland in 1981 (long urged on the Polish party leadership by Moscow). However, they took no concrete steps to try to ‘roll back Communism’ in Eastern Europe, in spite of the rhetoric about doing so which surfaced from time to time in the US.

A minority view among Western leaders was that engagement with Soviet and Eastern European countries at all levels would in the long run promote internal change there. Willy Brandt in West Germany was the most notable exponent of such a strategy. But none of them expected it to happen as quickly as it did. Soviet non-intervention was the big surprise for the rest of the world. The countries of Eastern Europe would have become non-Communist and independent decades earlier but for their assumption, correct until Gorbachev entered the Kremlin, that this would not be tolerated by Moscow and they would be making a bad situation worse.

An eyewitness account of the closing chapters of the Cold War is your final choice. Please tell me about Jack Matlock’s Reagan and Gorbachev.

Jack Matlock’s book, like Lévesque’s, is on the end of the Cold War, but is quite different because it is overwhelmingly concerned with US-Soviet relations. It differs in another respect from all four of the other books I’ve discussed, for it is written by an insider—a participant-observer in the policy process. Reagan and Gorbachev is one of three valuable books Matlock has written since he retired from the government service. Now aged 90, he was a career diplomat who played a significant and very constructive role in the process whereby the Cold War was ended. In 1983 he succeeded Richard Pipes as the top Soviet specialist on Reagan’s National Security Council.

Get the weekly Five Books newsletter

His policy preferences were very different from those of his predecessor. Pipes believed that no good could come of Reagan talking with Soviet leaders and was highly skeptical of the value of engagement. Matlock, in contrast, believed it was necessary to engage and he fully supported Reagan’s own desire to meet his Soviet counterparts. From Washington Matlock moved to Moscow, as American ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991. He was a rare example of a consequential Reagan Administration foreign policy appointee who kept his position after George H.W. Bush arrived in the White House.

Matlock’s book is based on a great deal of first-hand knowledge, on the careful records he kept at the time, and on the research he has conducted since leaving government service. While aware of Ronald Reagan’s intellectual shortcomings and blind spots, Matlock takes a highly positive view of him and of the part he played in the Cold War’s ending. He deplores, as did George Shultz, the fact that the Bush administration took so long to carry on where Reagan left off, thus losing momentum in the US-Soviet relationship and weakening Gorbachev’s position. Matlock recognizes Gorbachev’s indispensability for the Cold War ending so peaceably and in such a short space of time.

Margaret Thatcher sought your counsel to help her conduct the triangular relationship with the Soviets and Americans, which led to the end of the Cold War. What did your participation teach you about the role of expertise in statecraft?

Margaret Thatcher had many faults. She tried to do too much herself, bullied her ministers, particularly Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, and she became too sure she was always right. But her role in the ending of the Cold War was greater than has been recognized and greater than the disparity between British military power and that of the American and Soviet superpowers would lead a ‘realist’ to expect.

One of Thatcher’s strengths was to do her homework. She held many seminars on different aspects of policy to which outside experts were invited. She took great pains to be well-informed. I was an active participant in three such seminars—two at the prime minister’s official country residence, Chequers (in 1983 and 1987), and the other a much more informal discussion in 10 Downing Street in December 1984, the evening before Mikhail Gorbachev arrived for his first visit to Britain, three months prior to his becoming Soviet leader. I had been invited to brief her specifically on Gorbachev, who had first been brought to her attention by a paper I wrote for the 8 September 1983 seminar. The most important of these seminars was that 1983 one. As the now declassified government papers clearly show, it led to a change of British foreign policy—to what the documents describe as ‘a new policy’ of engagement with Communist Europe (both USSR and Eastern Europe).

“Margaret Thatcher had many faults . . . But her role in the ending of the Cold War was greater than has been recognized”

Up to that point, the Prime Minister had been skeptical about the idea that any good could come from engaging with the ‘evil empire’. Her views on this subject had remained close to Reagan’s. The British Foreign Office (our equivalent of the State Department) was concerned about the Cold War getting dangerously colder. They were anxious to improve East-West relations, but Thatcher had a deep distrust of the Foreign Office as an institution, believing that they were much too ready to compromise. That the academic experts at the 1983 seminar were even more in favor of engagement with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe—at all levels, we urged, from dissidents to general secretaries—helped to swing the Prime Minister behind a policy that the Foreign Office had hitherto failed to get her to adopt.

Thatcher prepared extraordinarily thoroughly for every meeting with Gorbachev who, for his part, was greatly impressed by how closely she had been following Soviet developments. They argued vigorously, but with a mutual respect, which developed into a surprising friendship. The fact that she was Reagan’s favorite foreign leader—he referred to her as a ‘soulmate’—made her all the more important in Gorbachev’s eyes, for she exercised real influence with Reagan personally and in his administration.

The Prime Minister’s official foreign policy adviser in 10 Downing Street, Sir Percy Cradock, worried that, ‘Iron Lady’ image notwithstanding, Gorbachev had become ‘something of an icon’ for her and that ‘she acted as a conduit from Gorbachev to Reagan, selling him in Washington as a man to do business with, and acting as an agent of influence in both directions’. Cradock disapproved of that, but I take the opposite view. In contrast with much of her diplomacy in Western Europe and her hostility to German unification, she played a valuably constructive role in the changing relationship with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

It was to Thatcher’s credit that she worked so hard to become well-informed. She was able to assimilate knowledge to a much greater extent than Reagan could, although he also prepared assiduously for summit meetings. Gorbachev gradually came to respect Reagan and they shared a desire (not endorsed by Thatcher) to rid the world entirely of nuclear weapons, but he also found the President obtuse. Thatcher, in contrast, with her vigor in debate and relevant facts at her fingertips, kept the Soviet leader on his toes. Not only Reagan, but Gorbachev at times also, was influenced by her.

As the coronavirus pandemic peaks, after decades during which authoritarianism seemed on the rise, your words in The Myth of the Strong Leader seem so prophetic that I must quote them: “When corners are cut because one leader is sure he knows best, problems follow, and they can be on a disastrous scale.” Please describe The Myth of the Strong Leader and its pertinence to the 2020s.

My academic interests have always been much broader than Soviet, Russian and Communist politics and have included other countries and other subjects. A recurring theme of my research and writing has been political leadership. The first really substantial article I published in an academic journal (in the 1960s) was on the powers and leadership styles of British prime ministers. The book you mention, The Myth of the Strong Leader , is on political leadership worldwide, focusing mainly on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I stress the danger of heads of government concentrating too much power in their hands and believing that they alone have the right to take all the big decisions. While that applies especially to authoritarian regimes—where a more collective leadership is usually a lesser evil than personal dictatorship—it is applicable also to democracies. Dangerously foolish risks are taken when a president or prime minister surrounds himself by people who are afraid to disagree with him or her, and when groupthink takes the place of uninhibited discussion in which neither senior colleagues nor expert advisers are afraid to air views contrary to those of the top leader.

Leaders who suffer from the illusion that they always know best and that their intuition is worth more than the professional knowledge or political understanding of lesser mortals are especially dangerous during a pandemic. Britain has not done well during the coronavirus health crisis. There are many reasons for that, but one is that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has never shared Margaret Thatcher’s concern with mastering policy detail and he was too ready to believe his own upbeat rhetoric.

But Johnson looks less bad in comparison with a President of the United States who is manifestly out of his depth in that role, but fails to realize it. Faced by fundamental global problems which cannot be fixed by building walls or populist invective—the coronavirus and, of even greater significance, climate change—a policy of ‘America First’ is as dangerous for the United States as it is for other countries. It also greatly damages the US’s reputation in the rest of the world. Even as early as 2017, in only two out of 37 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center was Donald Trump rated ahead of his far more highly esteemed predecessor Barack Obama. (The two exceptions were Russia and Israel.)

Since the spread of the coronavirus has been especially rapid and severe in the United States, as compared with many Asian and European countries that from its onset adopted more stringent, consistent and rational policies, Trump’s reputation has plummeted further. He is, I regret to say, a prime example of ‘the myth of the strong leader’—a leader who likes to look tough, relishing the power to follow his own whims, regardless of the evidence. This appeals to a segment of the population who admire that kind of ‘strength’ in a leader, although there are other, and far more desirable, qualities we would wish a head of government to possess—among them, integrity, intelligence, empathy, collegiality, diligence and (if we are lucky) vision. Presenting himself, with bombast and bluster, as ‘strong’ may be of some utility for a president perpetually running for re-election, but it is no way to govern a great country.

May 20, 2020

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

©Rebecca Phillipson

Archie Brown

Archie Brown is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University and Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1991 and has been an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2003. His latest book is The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2020). Brown’s previous books include The Myth of the Strong Leader: Political Leadership in the Modern Age , chosen by Bill Gates as one of the best five books he read in 2016; The Rise and Fall of Communism which won the W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize of the Political Studies Association of the UK for best politics book of the year and also the Alec Nove Prize; and The Gorbachev Factor , an earlier winner of both the Mackenzie and Nove prizes.

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

© Five Books 2024

• All Articles
• Books & Reviews
• Anthologies
• Audio Content
• Author Directory
• This Day in History
• War in Ukraine
• Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• Artificial Intelligence
• Climate Change
• Biden Administration
• Geopolitics
• Benjamin Netanyahu
• Vladimir Putin
• Volodymyr Zelensky
• Nationalism
• Authoritarianism
• Propaganda & Disinformation
• West Africa
• North Korea
• Middle East
• United States
• View All Regions

Article Types

• Capsule Reviews
• Review Essays
• Ask the Experts
• Reading Lists
• Newsletters
• Customer Service
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Subscriber Resources
• Group Subscriptions
• Gift a Subscription

Browse book reviews by:

• Magazine Issue

The Cold War: A New History

Reviewed by g. john ikenberry, by john lewis gaddis.

In this beautifully written panoramic view of the Cold War, full of illuminations and shrewd judgments, the distinguished diplomatic historian Gaddis brings the half-century U.S.-Soviet struggle to life for a general audience. Seen in retrospect, the Cold War -- from the Truman Doctrine and the Korean War to the Cuban missile crisis, détente, and the fall of the Berlin Wall -- appears to lead inexorably to a Western triumph. Gaddis seeks to show otherwise: the contingencies of individuals, ideas, critical decisions, narrow escapes, lost opportunities, and lurking dangers all intervened to give the great contest its character and trajectory. Drawing on his own earlier work and a synthesis of post-Cold War scholarship, Gaddis sees the conflict less as an inherent element in the bipolar postwar world than as a result of Soviet impulses toward domination, driven by ideology and dictatorship. He is best in depicting the ethical and strategic dilemmas that faced American presidents: the Cold War may have been a global struggle, but leaders such as Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon struggled at home to square foreign policy with principles of morality, law, and democratic accountability. Gaddis gives credit for the end of the Cold War to visionaries and "saboteurs of the status quo" such as Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, and Deng Xiaoping, as well as Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher. That Gaddis is now able to see this fifty-year conflict in its totality as a positive, progressive, and necessary struggle is a sign of how far into the past the Cold War era has receded.

• More By G. John Ikenberry

Stay informed.

Thank you for signing up. stay tuned for the latest from foreign affairs ..

Why is Christian Science in our name?

Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.

The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.

Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.

Your subscription makes our work possible.

We want to bridge divides to reach everyone.

Classic review: The Cold War – A New History

The cold war: how it began, why it ended

• By Jonathan Rosenberg

May 1, 2011

[This review from the Monitor's archives originally ran on Dec. 20, 2005]. Fourteen years ago, in December 1991, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told his country that the cold war was over. In signing the decree that dissolved the Soviet Union and ended the East-West competition, Gorbachev also announced an end to the arms race and the "insane militarization" that had "distorted" his country's thinking and "undermined" its morals. And perhaps most significantly, he claimed "the threat of a world war" had come to an end.

With the demise of the Soviet state, the world seemed ready to enter an era in which the fear of a catastrophic war would no longer stalk humanity. Many believed the perils of the cold war would give way to a more tranquil age.

But it was not to be. Yesterday's fear of intercontinental ballistic missiles raining down on New York or Washington has been supplanted by today's fear of suicide attacks and dirty bombs.

10 most frequently challenged library books of 2010

And now, when boarding a plane gives many people pause, one looks almost longingly at the postwar decades, when the United States seemed to understand its adversary and believed Russian leaders were unlikely to act irrationally. After all, the cold logic of the cold war meant a Soviet attack on the United States would lead to a swift and devastating response.

As US leaders strain to manage America's current overseas dilemmas, The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis transports us to an earlier era. In luminous detail, Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett professor of history at Yale , traces the history of the conflict that dominated world politics from the end of World War II to the early 1990s. How long ago it all seems.

Gaddis, America's most distinguished cold war historian, has been writing about the subject for more than 30 years. (I co-edited a book on nuclear diplomacy with Gaddis and two other scholars in 1999.)

But unlike several of his previous books, which were intended for scholars, this one is aimed at a broader audience - for those who want to understand how the cold war began, how it unfolded, and why it ended when it did.

Given these objectives, Gaddis has succeeded splendidly. Indeed, in the book's narrative sweep, analytical insights, and deft incorporation of the most recent scholarship, Gaddis has written the best one-volume treatment of the East-West struggle. By examining how individual leaders, differing ideologies, domestic politics, and the nuclear threat shaped the competition, he's produced an altogether stimulating work.

Assessing the origins of the cold war, a subject that has long sparked bitter debate among historians, Gaddis fully places responsibility for the conflict on Stalin and the Soviet Union. (Some historians assign the US primary responsibility, while others contend that both Moscow and Washington were to blame.)

The key, Gaddis argues, is that the United States and the Soviet Union had fundamentally different visions for the postwar world. The Americans possessed a multilateral vision that sought to avoid war by encouraging cooperation among the great powers, fostering political self-determination and economic integration, and relying on the United Nations to enhance the security of all states.

But Stalin's postwar vision could not have been more different. The Soviet dictator sought to advance Russian interests by establishing a ring of subservient (nondemocratic) states around his country's vulnerable western flank, while awaiting the inevitable rivalries that he believed would cause fissures and perhaps even war among capitalist nations.

As Gaddis observes, Stalin was convinced that "capitalist fratricide" would eventually allow the Soviets to dominate Europe .

Beyond exploring the conflict's origins, Gaddis superbly evaluates how nuclear weapons and ideology influenced the struggle. The bomb helped keep the peace between Moscow and Washington because using it first meant a certain, cataclysmic response. Thus, it was not a legitimate option for rational policymakers.

In the ideological realm, Gaddis writes that each state's ideology was "meant to offer hope" (as do all ideologies). But while one ideology depended upon "the creation of fear" to function, the other had no "need to do so." And that, he asserts, explains the cold war's "basic ideological asymmetry."

To the surprise of even the most astute observers, the cold war came to a swift end between 1989 and 1991. While the actions of Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan , and Pope John Paul II each contributed to the conflict's peaceful conclusion, world leaders were not central to ending the competition. The actions of "ordinary people" were crucial, Gaddis believes, for it was citizens in Budapest , Warsaw , Leipzig , Prague , and Bucharest who boldly threw off the shackles that had bound them for so long.

To be sure, Gorbachev decided Moscow was no longer prepared to maintain the old repressive order. But the liberation of millions was catalyzed by regular men and women who had the capacity to envision a better existence and the will to achieve it.

There were few more uplifting moments in 20th-century history, and it is easy to reflect on those heroic days with a certain wistfulness.

• Jonathan Rosenberg teaches American history at Hunter College , the City University of New York.

Join the Monitor's book discussion on Facebook and Twitter .

9 books Bill Gates thinks you should read

Help fund Monitor journalism for $11/ month

Already a subscriber? Login

Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.

Our work isn't possible without your support.

Unlimited digital access $11/month.

Digital subscription includes:

• Unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
• CSMonitor.com archive.
• The Monitor Daily email.
• No advertising.
• Cancel anytime.

Related stories

Visit book editor marjorie kehe's fan page (facebook.com), share this article.

Link copied.

Subscription expired

Your subscription to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. You can renew your subscription or continue to use the site without a subscription.

Return to the free version of the site

If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at 1-617-450-2300 .

This message will appear once per week unless you renew or log out.

Session expired

Your session to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. We logged you out.

No subscription

You don’t have a Christian Science Monitor subscription yet.

Advertisement

Supported by

'The Cold War: A New History,' by John Lewis Gaddis

Look Back in Relief

• Share full article

By Michael Beschloss

• Jan. 15, 2006

THE COLD WAR

A New History.

By John Lewis Gaddis.

333 pp. The Penguin Press. $27.95.

IN 1991, as the Soviet Union was cracking up, one of President George H. W. Bush's senior foreign policy officials told me, "You historians are going to have a hard time explaining to the Americans of the future why we thought the cold war was so dangerous for 45 years." He was right. By 2006, Americans too young to have lived through the era of duck-and-cover drills require a scholar of extraordinary gifts to tell why nine cold-war presidents deployed our national treasure against an empire that broke apart so clumsily in the end.

John Lewis Gaddis is that scholar, and "The Cold War: A New History" is the book they should read. A professor of history at Yale, Gaddis is the author of six renowned volumes on the cold war -- especially the strategies of both sides -- that were written during or shortly after the struggle.

No one did a better job of trying to explain the conflict as it was still unfolding, which for a historian is like trying to describe an entire forest while racing through it on horseback at midnight. But with this succinct and self-

assured book, Gaddis now enjoys the luxury of hovering high above the trees in gleaming sunlight, using the once-secret information and hindsight that a scholar needs to write true history.

He does not pretend all his past judgments were correct. For example, having insisted in 1987 that the cold war had evolved into a stable "long peace" that would last indefinitely, Gaddis is now happy to concede that "visionaries" like John Paul II, Lech Walesa, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan had a broader sense than he did of "historical possibility."

Gaddis's fresh takes on the era's leaders and episodes will most likely have an enormous influence. With relief he notes that the secret combat between American and Soviet planes during the Korean conflict was ultimately the only shooting war that ever developed between the sides during the entire cold war.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

“The Cold War: A New History” by John Lewis Gaddis Essay (Book Review)

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Works cited.

The Cold War ended in 1991 with a fall of Soviet Union. Since then, one full generation has grown up who have no personal recollection of that era. The libraries are full of scholarly tomes covering the Cold War period, which tell the whole story. However, it is rare to find a book which captures the essence of the Cold War in one concise volume, readable by students and the general public. John Lewis Gaddis, a professor of history at Yale University has filled up that gap by writing his treatise “The Cold War: A New History” especially aimed at students and the laymen. This book review covers the various facets of Lewis’s book giving the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s treatment of the subject.

Gaddis builds the story of the Cold War in a unique way of focusing each chapter on a particular theme. Gaddis explains this deliberate omission of following standard chronological method by stating that “any attempt to capture” the Cold War “within a simple chronological narrative could only produce mush” (Gaddis xi). In Chapter 1 “Return of Fear”, Gaddis states that the Cold War was caused due to the competing and divergent ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States emphasized individual liberty as its highest ideal and that capitalism afforded a way to attain that liberty. The Soviets on the other hand held that the workers of the world needed to unite to overthrow the exploitative capitalists. Chapter1 explains the build up of distrust, the fear of each others intentions and the opening moves of the prominent leaders of the period immediately after the Second World War squarely blaming Stalin for spreading the fear psychosis. According to Gaddis, “Stalin’s postwar goals were security for himself, his regime, his country, and his ideology, in precisely that order”. Gaddis informs the lay reader that the effect of Stalin’s various moves caused George Kennan, the US Moscow Foreign Service officer in 1946 to send the ‘Long Telegram’ that postulated that aggression and expansion was the characteristic of the Soviet Union and called for an American response of containment (Gaddis, p. 29). This was a seminal event, which shaped the basic contours of American strategy during the Cold War era.

Chapter II “Deathboats and Lifeboats”, sums up the various perceptions of the leaders on both the sides with regard to the unfolding events and the specter of a nuclear war. In this chapter Gaddis brings out clearly the differing attitudes of President Truman and Eisenhower with regards to the use of Atomic weapons. Truman would not allow the military to have unfettered control over the use of atomic weapons and laid down the rule that their use would be authorized only by the President (Gaddis, p. 50). However, Gaddis surmises that though Truman was chary of atomic weapons, he allowed them to be built only because he feared that the Soviets would get it first. Unlike Truman, Eisenhower was an ex-general who clearly understood the potency of the weapon as also the horrors of war. Across the Iron Curtain , Nikita Khrushchev too had a similar background. Both sought to leverage the threat of use of weapons through competing nuclear strategy. Eisenhower’s Single War plan of using 3000 nuclear weapons simultaneously against all communist countries shocked the next President – Kennedy to rationalize the strategy from Massive Retaliation to Mutually Assured Destruction (Gaddis, p. 80). Gaddis explains the significance of the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis in this chapter and concludes that though Khrushchev’s strategic gamble of placing nuclear tipped missiles in Cuba to foster Communism in Americas failed, it did achieve some successes. “Deathboats and Lifeboats” thus alludes to the dangerous moves made by both the sides as also the subsequent moves carried out to defuse tensions and manage the Cold War at less than Armageddon level.

Chapter III of Gaddis’s book “Command versus Spontaneity” deals more with the ideology of that era and less with the historical rendition. The reader here is given a treatment of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the reasons for its failures. According to Gaddis, the fundamental failure of Communism lay in the presumption of the original theory; that of inevitable class struggle, necessity for dictatorship to achieve revolutionary ends and the inflexibility of a system which did not learn from its mistakes. The author recounts the efforts of various personalities who try to change the system and fail. The tragic account of Beria whose attempt to reverse the worst of Stalinist rule ending with his execution is recounted with finesse (Gaddis, pp. 104-106). This chapter posits that the Cold War was also a ‘war of ideas’ concerned with organization of the society as well as the rights of the individuals. ‘Command’ became central to the Soviet ideology which led to brutal suppression of its peoples. This also led to spontaneous riots in East Germany in 1953 and later the centrality of ‘Command’ was responsible for erecting the Berlin wall on 12-13 August 1961.

In Chapter Four, Gaddis examines what he calls ‘The Emergence of Autonomy”.

He begins by explaining the overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev on 13 October 1964. Gaddis explains that the period from late 1950 to early 1970 was an era of bipolarity where both the parties favored decolonization of the world. In this chapter, Gaddis attempts a broad sweep of all the freedom movements that spread from Africa to Asia. The concept of non-alignment is given a Machiavellian twist by Gaddis who claims that it was a strategy adopted by some to keep their allegiance ambiguous so that either super power could be played off against the other depending upon the circumstances by the non-aligned nations.

In Chapter V, “Recovery of Equity” Gaddis expounds on the hopes and aspirations of the people on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The ‘Equity’ recovery that the author alludes to is that in the 1970s, both the peoples (West and the Soviet Bloc) showed greater resistance to the authoritarian policies of their respective governments. This is reflected in the Watergate gate scandal which led to fall of President Nixon. It also showed to the world including the Soviets that democratic principles desired the Rule of Law and the fact that popular will could not be stifled. The ‘recovery of equity’ also points to the fact that since the late 1940s the CIA had been running a secret global war to undermine the Soviets. The will of the Iranian people and their resistance to the CIA backed regime of Mohammad Reza Shah leading to his overthrow in 1979 is an expression of popular will. The equity also alludes to the concept of ‘Détente’ which Gaddis says was implemented under Nixon “to lower the risks of war and encourage a more predictable relationship among the Cold War rivals (181). Détente, according to Gaddis helped freeze Cold War in place., but ’not end it”(198).

Chapter VI deals with powerful personalities who shaped the Cold War policies. These ‘actors’ such as Carter and Reagan on the American side, Brezhnev in USSR, Deng Xiao Peng in China and Thatcher in Britain shaped the Cold War policies in the 1980s. Gaddis is generous in his praise of Ronald Reagan whom he credits with understanding that the Soviet Union was close to collapse. Gaddis claims that Reagan knew that his ‘Strategic Defense Initiative’ (SDI) popularly known as ‘Stars Wars’ program was decades away from fructifying but the Soviets did not know that and thus Reagan used the SDI as a bargaining chip for the various arms reduction talks. Gaddis is also dismissive about Gorbachev whom he labels as lacking in strength of personality and vision as compared to Reagan.

In Chapter VII, Gaddis covers the end game of the Cold war and aptly names the chapter as “Triumph of Hope”. This chapter covers mostly the events of the period 1989 to 1991 wherein the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union seemed inevitable. The ‘Triumph of Hope’ is reflective in the return of elections and democracy in Poland in 1989, the hope for democracy in China cut short by the massacre of Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the fall of Communism in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia also in the same period. The fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification on 3 October 1991 echoes this hope. The ‘hope’ is further elaborated with the dynamics of unfolding events in a rapidly crumbling Soviet Union with growing domestic unpopularity of Gorbachev, the failed communist coup of August 1991 and the rise of Boris Yeltsin as the leader of Russia. The’ Triumph of Hope’ stamps its recognition on world history when Gorbachev officially abolishes the Soviet Union on Christmas day 1991.

In the epilogue the author concludes that the Cold War had many important facts. The author reasons that before the Cold War, major powers fought many direct conflicts, but during the Cold War, they did not fight a single war directly. The primary reason for this to happen, was that the presence of nuclear weapons made it impossible to win major wars. The Cold War helped democracy to bloom the world over as people saw the relative merits of Democracy versus the stifling control and disadvantages of Communism. Gaddis posits that the Cold War also discredited authoritarianism, Marxist-Leninism, and Communism. In the final analysis, Gaddis concludes that the Soviets failed to win the Cold War because the basic premises of Marx were incorrect and that “dissatisfaction with capitalism never reached the point at which ‘proletariatans of all countries’ felt it necessary to unite to throw off their ‘chains.’” (Gaddis, p. 264).

John Lewis Gaddis’s book makes excellent reading for the uninitiated. The book gives a factual overview of the events of the Cold War albeit, with a distinct pro-American bias. Democratic triumphalism is evident throughout the book with Gaddis observing that democratic ideals were superior to the poorly constructed Marxist ideology. Such pronouncements can best be considered as half truths as the reasons and causes for the fall of the Soviet Union are far more complex than the simplistic view that Gaddis would want his readers to believe. The book attempts to broad brush the contributions of the Third World countries to global geopolitics during the Cold War era. The book is obviously written for a western audience in its negative portrayal of the non-aligned movement and thus loses objectivity in parts. The book though eminently readable would have benefited had the author provided a chronological timeline as an appendix for those who prefer to study and understand the Cold War in a more traditional scholastic manner.

Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. NY: Penguin, 2005.

• “Night” by Elie Wiesel: Holocaust and Genocide
• “The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography” by George Rawick
• Truman’s vs. Eisenhower’s Administrations
• Mikhail Gorbachev's 1988 UN Speech
• Dwight D. Eisenhower's Role in World War II
• “The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War” by Downs
• Russian Revolution in “Cement” by Gladkov
• Huxley’s Brave New World Review
• Saga of Volsungs: Norse Folklore Analysis
• "Voices of Protest" by Alan Brinkley
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, October 20). "The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-cold-war-a-new-history-by-john-lewis-gaddis/

""The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis." IvyPanda , 20 Oct. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-cold-war-a-new-history-by-john-lewis-gaddis/.

IvyPanda . (2021) '"The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis'. 20 October.

IvyPanda . 2021. ""The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-cold-war-a-new-history-by-john-lewis-gaddis/.

1. IvyPanda . ""The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-cold-war-a-new-history-by-john-lewis-gaddis/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""The Cold War: A New History" by John Lewis Gaddis." October 20, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-cold-war-a-new-history-by-john-lewis-gaddis/.

There appears to be a technical issue with your browser

This issue is preventing our website from loading properly. Please review the following troubleshooting tips or contact us at [email protected] .

Review: Cold War II Is All About Geopolitics

Create an FP account to save articles to read later.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Downloadable PDFs are a benefit of an FP subscription.

Subscribe Now

• World Brief
• Editors’ Picks
• Africa Brief
• China Brief
• Latin America Brief
• South Asia Brief
• Situation Report
• Flash Points
• War in Ukraine
• Israel and Hamas
• U.S.-China competition
• U.S. election 2024
• Biden's foreign policy
• Trade and economics
• Artificial intelligence
• Asia & the Pacific
• Middle East & Africa

How Trump and Harris Compare on Economic Policy

Could civil war erupt in america, ones and tooze, foreign policy live.

Summer 2024 Issue

Print Archive

FP Analytics

• In-depth Special Reports
• Issue Briefs
• Power Maps and Interactive Microsites
• FP Simulations & PeaceGames
• Graphics Database

Catalysts for Change

Webinar: how to create a successful podcast, fp @ unga79, ai for healthy cities, her power @ unga79.

By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time.

Your guide to the most important world stories of the day

Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent

The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week

Weekly update on what’s driving U.S. national security policy

Evening roundup with our editors’ favorite stories of the day

One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture

Weekly update on developments in India and its neighbors

A curated selection of our very best long reads

Cold War II Is All About Geopolitics

A new book overplays the domestic roots of sino-u.s. confrontation and underestimates its geopolitical logic..

• U.S. Foreign Policy
• Geopolitics

In Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War , Michael Doyle writes that he remembers with nostalgia the optimism of the early 1990s. So do I: Serving as a junior officer in the Norwegian armed forces toward the end of the Cold War, I can still recall the sense of euphoria watching the Berlin Wall fall and Europe’s geopolitical divide crumble down. The post-Cold War order that followed was certainly not perfect, but it provided peace and prosperity around much of the world on an unparalleled scale. Yet now, we are on the verge of another cold war, and global security and stability are at risk—with serious implications for democracy and human rights, economic growth, and climate change. Cold Peace engages with three major questions concerning the emerging Cold War II.

Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War , Michael Doyle, Liveright, 336 pp., $30, April 2023

First, it asks why another cold war is looming. Doyle posits that we are now paying the price for lack of creativity in the 1990s—and that with less U.S. and Western arrogance, it could have been possible to incorporate Russia into a common European security architecture and build more democratic regimes in both China and Russia. It is fascinating to see how Doyle, who belongs to the liberal school of thought in the study of international relations, to a large degree echoes the arguments of the ostensibly opposing realist school, including the claim by University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer that the United States’ unwavering faith in advancing liberal hegemony is a major reason for the rise of nationalism in China and Russia. Today, however, as the Kremlin attempts to dismember Ukraine and publicly threatens other Eastern European countries, barring former Warsaw Pact members from NATO would clearly have been a larger mistake than extending the alliance. U.S. policy on China, too, may have been just right, with neither too much nor too little engagement. Still, exploring whether alternative paths might have led Beijing and Moscow to be stronger supporters of the liberal order, like Doyle does in Cold Peace , is a meaningful exercise.

Second, comparing the emerging cold war to the original one, Doyle concludes that Cold War II is unlikely to be as extreme as the first Cold War, due to a common interest in mutually dependent prosperity and because contemporary Russia and China are authoritarian, not totalitarian, with less interest in ideological crusades than their Stalinist and Maoist predecessors. Doyle accordingly suggests that the current state of affairs requires another label than cold war, thus the title of his book. “Unlike cold wars, cold peaces do not include proxy wars, covert sabotage, or attempts to destabilize the political independence of rival states,” he writes.

An East German checkpoint marks the border between West and East Berlin, on Oct. 13, 1976. Ralph Gatti/AFP via Getty Images

Third, the book debates how a cold war can be avoided. Doyle argues that the best bulwark against a Cold War II, let alone an escalation to a hot war, is for the United States and other liberal countries to pursue responsible leadership at home and protect their own democratic institutions. To achieve this, Doyle suggests a second New Deal to address the domestic inequalities that fuel populism in contemporary democracies.

Cold Peace is an important book, but it has one major weakness: It fails to address geopolitics as the main factor molding the new cold war. Doyle states that “it is geoeconomics, rather than geopolitics, in which the contest for world leadership will play out.” Omitting geopolitics, though, tells only half the story of the emerging cold war. It reminds me of the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid!” coined by then-U.S. presidential candidate Bill Clinton during his 1992 campaign. The phrase has since come to encapsulate the supremacy of economics over politics. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, we have seen governments gradually reassert themselves over the economy with industrial policy, emissions regulation, and new limits on globalization. Similarly, with the return of great-power rivalry to global affairs, the liberal school of thought—with its emphasis on economic interdependence, ideology, and domestic institutions—has lost some of its explanatory value. Indeed, in order to make sense of contemporary world politics, one is tempted to invoke Clinton: “It’s the geopolitics, stupid!”

Building his argument on liberalism, however, Doyle views the domestic roots of conflict as the most important driver of a new cold war. Is that really true? China’s domestic polity, for example, is not all that different today than from 10 or 20 years ago, when the United States engaged China on many levels. Washington, too, has not undergone a dramatic ideological shift in the way it views the world. Doyle argues that economic competition with China is challenging the U.S. middle class and encouraging the United States to implement restrictions on trade and international investment. But this is not new: The United States responded in a similar fashion to Japan’s economic rise in the 1980s. The difference, of course, is that Japan never seriously invested in military power, whereas contemporary China does.

The main factor changing Washington’s China policy from engagement toward containment is not ideology, but the shifting balance of power. Today, the international system is no longer unipolar, and it is also not yet multipolar or tripolar, as Doyle suggests. The current power structure is bipolar, just as it was during the original Cold War. It is the bipolar U.S.-China rivalry—with its inherent logic of balancing and alignment—that is shaping a new cold war, just as the bipolar U.S.-Soviet rivalry shaped the original Cold War. Doyle, like many others , often refers to Russia’s assertiveness and invasion of Ukraine as a driver of Cold War II. However, Russia is no longer a great power. The war in Ukraine might enhance a new geopolitical divide between a U.S.-led bloc of allies on one side and a strengthened Chinese-Russian partnership on the other, but the main story in international affairs today is the U.S.-China rivalry.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden meet at the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 14, 2022. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

In fact, in terms of economic power, the current system is actually more perfectly bipolar than during the Cold War, with China’s aggregated economic wealth almost equaling that of the United States, whereas the Soviet economy never accounted for much more than 50 percent of the U.S. economy. With regard to military power, the current international system is less perfectly bipolar than it was during the Cold War, with a larger gap in military might between Washington and Beijing now than between Washington and Moscow then. But the reason for this gap in military might is simply because China still spends a smaller share of its GDP on defense than the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.

Doyle debates at length about the international power structure, but he concludes that it is tripolar, consisting of the United States, China, and Russia in military terms, and the United States, China, and the European Union in economic terms. It seems that nobody likes to admit the arrival of a bipolar power structure. The United States doesn’t like it, because it reduces its power position. Beijing is not fully committed to it either, because it elevates China to an international position it is not yet ready to fill. And European leaders certainly don’t like it, because they would prefer a multipolar system—as would Russia and India. Moreover, after three decades of globalization, there is a great deal of reluctance among policymakers and academics alike to accept the realities of an intense, all-encompassing, and polarizing bipolar rivalry. Then there are those who find the idea of a multipolar world more comforting or fairer—say, to the rising powers of the global south—but in doing so, they are espousing a normative view of what the world should look like in their eyes, not the way it actually is today.

Still, even though the U.S.-China power structure resembles that of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry, the geographic context of these two bipolar systems differs, creating two very unique geopolitical logics. As the U.S. international relations scholar Nicholas J. Spykman wrote in America’s Strategy in World Politics in 1942, geopolitics is the interplay between power and geography. It means that a new territorial order always emerges with the rise and fall of great powers and is determined by where the great powers are geographically located vis-à-vis each other. During the original Cold War, the United States faced the land power Soviet Union, situated in the Eurasian heartland, whereas today it faces the sea power China, located in the Asian rimlands. This variance in geography has major implications for the great-power rivalry and international order.

People’s Liberation Army sailors stand on their warship during an international fleet review off Qingdao, China, on April 23, 2009. Guang Niu/AFP via Getty Images

Even so, Doyle’s Cold Peace does not discuss China’s geographic position at all, nor its nature as a fast-growing sea power. Let me here briefly highlight three ways in which China’s rimland position matters—and will inform the emerging global order much more than politics and the other domestic factors Doyle addresses.

First, China’s rimland position enables it to build sea power. It is China’s fast-growing naval capabilities, and not differences in political systems, that drives the U.S.-China rivalry. Chinese sea power challenges the long-standing U.S. supremacy in Asia, and Republicans and Democrats alike support the United States pivoting more of its resources into the Indo-Pacific theater to balance China’s military rise. Moreover, the U.S.-China naval rivalry may be less stable than the predominantly land-based U.S.-Soviet rivalry. The Cold War’s main focus on the European land theater allowed the strategy of massive retaliation to emerge, which strongly deterred any attempts to cross the fixed line dividing Europe and contributed to strategic stability. Today, the absence of fixed lines in Asian waters may reduce the risk of nuclear escalation between China and the United States, but it increases the risk of a limited war with uncertain escalation mechanisms.

Second, I share Doyle’s view that Cold War II will be less polarized than the first Cold War. But rather than seeing this as the result of domestic issues and ideology, I would emphasize geopolitics and the importance of China’s rimland position. Whereas the Soviet Union’s nature as a land- and resource-based economy contributed to a distinct two-bloc economic divide during the Cold War, China’s rimland position enables it to stay more interconnected with the global economy. China’s comprehensive sea power, from its shipbuilding capabilities to its large merchant fleet to its naval prowess, adds to this picture.

Third, I share Doyle’s concern about the future of trans-Atlantic ties. Nonetheless, where Doyle sees the rise of populism in the United States as a threat to the U.S. commitment to European security, I would yet again stress the importance of China’s geography. Political leaders may change, but China’s geographic constraints will remain the same. From its position in the East Asian rimland, China has more limited geographic reach than the Cold War-era Soviet Union did, and this creates diverging threat perceptions in the United States and Europe. While the Soviet Union was a two-flank challenge to the United States across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, China is a one-flank challenge only, in Asia. Geography thus forces the United States to give priority to its Pacific flank, whereas Europe views Russia as the larger challenge to its security.

Cold Peace is a useful guide to make sense of the emerging Cold War II, but Doyle overplays the domestic roots of international affairs. In order to fully grasp contemporary world politics and the U.S.-China rivalry, there remains no better guide than classic geopolitics.

Books are independently selected by FP editors. FP earns an affiliate commission on anything purchased through links to Amazon.com on this page.

Jo Inge Bekkevold is a senior China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies and a former Norwegian diplomat.

Join the Conversation

Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription.

Already a subscriber? Log In .

Subscribe Subscribe

View Comments

Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now.

Not your account? Log out

Please follow our comment guidelines , stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs.

Change your username:

I agree to abide by FP’s comment guidelines . (Required)

Confirm your username to get started.

The default username below has been generated using the first name and last initial on your FP subscriber account. Usernames may be updated at any time and must not contain inappropriate or offensive language.

More from Foreign Policy

The top international relations schools of 2024, ranked.

An insider’s guide to the world’s best programs—for both policy and academic careers.

The Kamala Harris Doctrine

Everything we know about the presumptive Democratic nominee’s foreign-policy views.

NATO’s New Map

On NATO’s new map—with all of Scandinavia now in the alliance—everything has to be connected.

Could Iranians Have Been Involved in Haniyeh’s Killing?

The assassination of the Hamas political leader points to public dissatisfaction with the regime in Tehran.

Ukraine’s Invasion of Russia Could Bring a Quicker End to the War

The state department's gaza policy has failed, m. night shyamalan pulls off the ultimate twist, what the olympics mean to china, how japan’s yen carry trade crashed global markets, india’s uncertain future in bangladesh, america is no longer basketball’s sole superpower, mediators push ‘final’ israel-hamas cease-fire proposal, untangling this week’s market turmoil, what in the world.

Sign up for World Brief

FP’s flagship evening newsletter guiding you through the most important world stories of the day, written by Alexandra Sharp . Delivered weekdays.

The Cold War - A new History by John Lewis Gaddis

reviewed by Marc Schulman

John Gaddis relatively short New History of the Cold War takes a retrospective look at the period, He covers all the major turning points of the Cold War provide new insights into all. One of Gaddis major thesis is the importance of individuals in determining the both the origins and the end of the war. I found his observations on TrumanÕs attitude toward nuclear weapons to be particularly insightful. Truman Gaddis points out changed the history of warfare by viewing Nuclear weapons as not like any other in history. After using them twice to end WWII Truman made it clear that the military would not control their use but only he would. When the military need arose to use them in Korea he ruled out their usage, Truman thus established the basic rules of the Cold War- there was this very powerful weapon that both sides soon possessed, but if at all possible would never be used.

Gaddis also discusses the key role that the key figures of the 1980s had over ending the Cold war specifically President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul, Both of them concluded that the maintaining the status quo was neither moral nor necessary and acted to transform the very nature of the international status quo. There action was a clear departure from the actions of other leaders at the time. Although Gaddis believes that the actions of key leaders was pivotal he does not ignore economic determinism. He posits that the communism was in fact a low hanging fruit just waiting to be picked by Reagan and others, It was low due to the failures to Communism to provide for its people, This combined with its failures to accurately predict what would happen to the capitalist west produced a system that was effectively bankrupt. Thus, when Reagan, the Pope and others called its bluff, it fell rapidly like the proverbial dominos that so dominated US policy in the 60Õs. Instead of SE Asian countries going communist, the communist nation one by one rejected their communist governments and as they fell, the whole system imploded on itself.

Send Comments to [email protected]

© 1996-2022 Historycentral.com Inc . All Rights Reserved.

• Technology & Internet Lawyer
• Copyright and Intellectual Property Lawyer and Litigator
• Privacy & CASL
• Government Relations
• Books & Articles
• Speeches & Media
• Privacy Policy
• AI Regulation
• artificial inteliigence
• book review

Cold War 2.0: The Battle Between Democracies and Autocracies: book review

• March 3, 2024
• Barry Sookman

There is a major battle being waged between the world’s democratic countries led by the United States, Germany, France, South Korea, and Japan and the major autocracies led by China and Russia. This battle, called “ Cold War 2.0 Artificial Intelligence in the New Battle between China, Russia, and America ” in the new book written by George Takach (published by Pegasus Books and distributed by Simon & Schuster ), explains the tensions between the democracies and autocracies and provides thoroughly researched insights into the tensions and risks and what the democracies must do to prevail.

Cold War 2.0 explains that unlike the first cold war between the Soviet Union and the West that developed after World War II, this war is exemplified by the use of military tech and other coercive strategies by the autocracies against the democracies such as cyber attacks, economic coercion, misinformation and cognitive warfare (to sow divisions and interfere in domestic politics), and intellectual property theft. In Cold war 2.0, the autocracies ignore the rules based international order and, as in the case of Russia’s unprovoked and unjust war in Ukraine, and China’s threats to take over Taiwan by military force, attack or threaten to attack peaceful democratic neighbors, especially when they perceive the democracies will not band together to oppose them.

Cold War 2.0 explains that innovations in the accelerator technologies of artificial intelligence, semi-conductor chips, quantum computing, and biotech are and will be the dual use technologies that give the democracies the industrial and military edge. But, to prevail and leverage their innovative advantages, they must develop and maintain policies to act together to push back against the autocracies, have policies that continue to foster technological innovation, and de-couple and prevent the export of the accelerator technologies to the autocracies.

A core theme of Cold War 2.0 is the importance of how the two camps facing off in Cold War 2.0 stack up in terms of technology and innovation. Cold War 2.0 posits that power, whether of the economic, military, or soft form, and geopolitics is derived from the domains of technology and innovation. Cold War 2.0 discusses the drivers and particularly the role of technology and technological innovation and their importance to national prosperity and national security.

Cold War 2.0 also posits that the democracies are well ahead of, and will stay ahead of, the autocracies in the transformative technologies of AI, semi-conductors, biotech and quantum computers and other important technologies such cloud computing, software and software services, internet and telecom platforms, space technologies, fusion technology, robotics and military defense.

George Takach in Cold War 2.0 notes that the “essential battle of Cold War 2.0 is the push by the autocrats to topple the rules-based international order, and the ability—and hopefully willingness, resolve, and stamina—of democracies to resist this dangerous effort by the autocracies.” He explains that “the rules-based, free and open international order based on international law is in grave crisis, with Russia in Ukraine, Hamas in the Middle East, China openly trying to deny the international order in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, and with authoritarian narratives penetrating some democracies” Further,  that the democracies “must demonstrate that democracy offers the best model for prosperity, stability, and security.”

Cold War 2.0 also provides insights into the domestic policies of the leading democracies and autocracies. Importantly, it stresses how important international leadership of the United States is to winning Cold War 2.0. It also shows how dangerous the re-election of Donald Trump and the isolationist policies of the Republican Party in the United States are to countering the threats posed by the autocracies of China and Russia.

It is precisely because Cold War 2.0 requires the US to play such a linchpin role as the leading democracy in the world that the rise of autocratic and isolationist tendencies in the US are so disconcerting. There is no sugarcoating the immense risk. Donald Trump has said he would withdraw support from Ukraine. This would embolden Putin, cause a crisis of confidence within NATO, and cause shock waves through the foreign ministries in Seoul, Tokyo, and Canberra… In a perfect world, American isolationism is an option. In the wildly imperfect world that actually exists, where autocrats constantly strive to expand their physical and digital spheres of empire and oppression, American isolationism cannot become an option. In the early 1920s, after a terrible World War I, America retreated back to the Western Hemisphere and refused to join the League of Nations, not wanting to get entangled in “old world” conflicts anymore. America’s departure from the world stage virtually ensured an even bloodier World War II. Thankfully, America decided to help build a world governed by a rules-based international order after World War II. The result (helped along by deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons, to be sure) has been a lasting peace among the great powers since then. It would be absolute folly for the Republican Party to try again the 1920s geopolitical strategy of isolation, especially when the world is in the midst of Cold War 2.0. Americans need to do the right thing on November 5, 2024, not just for the other democracies of the world, but for themselves… Responsibility for the immense democracy wrecking ball that is Donald Trump rests not only on Trump’s own shoulders, but also on the many enablers within the Republican Party who speak nary a word against this autocrat wannabe while he attempts to break every institution of domestic and global democracy he possibly can. In truth, the greatest battle to date of Cold War 2.0 will not be fought in Ukraine, or in the Taiwan Strait, but at the American ballot box in November 2024.

As a technology lawyer and lawyer interested in policies that promote innovation in AI and other technologies, I found George Takach’s insights on the importance of innovation to economic prosperity and security to be refreshing.  These are immensely important goals as the democracies are currently grappling with the best policy frameworks to promote ethical and safe innovation without hindering crucial innovation. In the area of AI, the European Union is out in front with the recent agreement on the draft Artificial Intelligence Act ( summarized here ). The U.K. is taking a pro-innovation decentralized approach, while the Canadian government appears posed to enact a deeply flawed AI regulatory regime law ( AIDA ) that could well impede Canada’s prosperity and national security in one of the most important, strategic and transformative technologies of our time.

While the focus of Cold War 2.0 is not on the best approach to regulating technologies like AI, because of its critical importance to the prosperity and national security of the democracies, the book counsels taking a “light” pro-innovation approach that fosters completive displacement. According to George Takach:

Artificial intelligence will be central to all the protagonists involved in Cold War 2.0, for the simple reason that it will become a core technology—perhaps the core technology—of the 21st century. In addition, as an accelerator technology, AI is having and will continue to have enormous impact on a range of other innovation.” “…the legislatures of the relevant democracies should have appropriate science and technology subcommittees hold hearings into AI, and specifically the risks posed by it, but even then the urge to regulate AI should be pursued with restraint, given that there is simply insufficient evidence of harm at this point that would warrant a heavy-handed approach to lawmaking. There might be one day, but that day has yet to come. In the meantime, in order to ensure that they prevail against the autocracies in Cold War 2.0, the democracies should not handicap themselves relative to the autocracies by shutting down AI research unilaterally… “Particularly in the Cold War 2.0 world of global rivalry, the democracies cannot afford to hamper competitive displacement in their market for software development, which is the secret sauce of so much of their success.” “Moreover, AI should be regulated, but with a light touch that doesn’t dampen the tempo and volume of research and development or build a digital moat around today’s leading AI behemoths. This will be one of the most consequential legislative interventions in the economy in the history of the United States; Congress and the White House, with the help of the courts, should be prepared to course-correct a few times before they get it right.”

George Takach is well placed to have written this important and thought provoking book. He has a background in international affairs (with an MA from Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton). He was a prominent technology lawyer with McCarthy Tetrault – my law partner for over 30 years – and perhaps one of the best tech lawyers Canada has ever had. He was also a Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School (adjunct) for over 20 years as well as an author of several books on computer law.

Importantly, throughout his illustrious career George Takach could be trusted for his insights and, in my experience, was invariably right on issues. His book Cold War 2.0   is meticulously researched and provides many useful insights to help understand the frightening and perilous times we are living in. It provides many suggestions for pushing back and countering the attacks and risks associated with China and Russia. It deserves to be read and debated.

Cold War 2.0 should also be required reading for policy makers in governments. This is especially so for government departments in charge of promoting innovation in the accelerator technologies, foreign relations, and national security. As for Canada, it should be read by the officials in Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and the Office of the Prime Minister (PMO) who could benefit from Cold War 2.0’s insights and warnings regarding stifling AI innovation such as by an improvident AI law like AIDA, and Global Affairs Canada that manages Canada’s diplomatic relations (among other things) and National Defense – Canada (DND).

George Takach will be appearing at two book launches this week. The first is at McCarthy Tetrault on Monday March 4, 2024. The second book launch will be hosted by the Munk School on March 6, 2024.

George Takach is an engaging speaker and the topic is a red hot one. You will want to attend.

Related Topics

• Book Review
• Cold War 2.0
• George Takach

Subscribe now to our newsletter

You May Also Like

• AI and copyright

Navigating the Future of AI Law: Understanding the EU AI Act and AIDA

• June 22, 2024

• Internet defamation
• internet jurisdiction
• ISP Liability
• IT agreements
• IT Contracts
• Limitations of liability
• Outsourcing
• Presentations
• software licenses
• web wrap agreement

Year(s) in review – IT, Internet, AI, IP, Privacy & Blockchain

• June 9, 2024

Understanding the AIA Copyright Provisions in the EU Artificial Intelligence Act

• April 7, 2024

Understanding Bill C-27 from the INDU Committee review

• April 4, 2024

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Input your search keywords and press Enter.

Discover more from Barry Sookman

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

• Privacy Overview
• Strictly Necessary Cookies

This website may use cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Cold War: A Novel of the Berlin Airlift

Helena P. Schrader's Cold War is the second installment in the Bridge to Tomorrow series, a historical novel that explores the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949. This gripping tale continues the story introduced in Cold Peace , following a diverse cast of characters facing the challenges of rebuilding their lives in post-war Berlin. The novel is meticulously researched, deftly melding historical events with fictional characters to create a rich, immersive narrative. The story takes place against the backdrop of the Berlin Airlift, where Western powers are working to supply the city amidst a Soviet blockade. The characters' experiences are shaped by this historical event, which serves as a backdrop for their struggles and relationships.

This harrowing story of the 1948-1949 Soviet siege of Berlin features sophisticated and genuinely flawed characters, from heroic pilots who risk their lives to supply the city with food and fuel to ordinary Berliners, including city councilor Jakob Liebherr and Women's Auxiliary Air Force Cpl. Galyna Borisenko, a Soviet-born Ukrainian who has become a British citizen. The story is filled with vivid descriptions of the airlift's challenges, from attacks from Russian MiGs to bad weather, as well as the struggles of the civilians, including starving children and families torn apart by the blockade. Schrader creates a conflict and captures the human condition in a way that inspires pathos in readers, examining difficult topics —like the psychological trauma experienced by those who have lived through the horrors of war — with cleverness and clarity.

The narrative's central theme is the challenge of rebuilding after the devastation of war. The author has a unique gift to humanize the characters, even those who may seem familiar. Robert Priestman, a Battle of Britain veteran, is a particularly compelling character. He is driven by his duty to save 17,000 civilians from Stalin's grip, a duty he considers “the moral equivalent of going down fighting…” While this is a historical narrative, it delivers resonant themes and offers a setting that is as transporting as it is detailed, a finely drawn portrait of everyday life in Berlin and the bigger implications of the airlift. Cold War is a thrilling new entry into the series that will capture the interests of fans of well-researched and compelling historical narratives. It delights from the descriptive prose and the complex characters to the vividly drawn setting. Helena P. Schrader delivers from every angle.

Reviewed By: Matthew Novak

Date: july 31, 2024.

The Space Between Dreaming: A Novel

by Cherie Burbach

America’s Ethical Archetype

by Damien Terrence Dubo...

Pioneering Prosperity: The Morazan Model for Free...

by Joyce Brand

When a Stranger Knocks: a Great Depression Novel

by Peggy Ann Shumway

An Unlikely Arrangement

by Cindy Patterson

Moonshadow over Red Moon Hill

by Cynthia L. Clark

Not Your Shoe Size: A Novel About Acting Your Age...

by Jennifer DiVita

Against All Odds

by Carola Hauer

Fly, little Sparrow: A tale of bravery and love in...

by Marina Koulouri

Richard: War Erupts

by Michael W Hickman

Killing Pain, Understanding the Opioid Pandemic an...

by Robert Hayward

Almost Perfect

by E.F. Dodd

AMAYA'S LEGACY Book One: An Alien Affair

by Fiona Forbes

by Gerry Burke

by Don Tassone

Murder in Blue

by Mike Avery

Mr. Moonbeam and the Halloween Crystal

by Ryan Cowan

Like a Lily Among the Thorns

by Karen S. Bell

The Alas League

by Christian-Eric Falar...

Better Gnomes & Gardens

by Casey Cardel

The Reikel Conspiracy

by Richard Rees

The Hawk Enigma

by J.L. Hancock

by Ellen Dee Davidson

Book Review:A Global History of the Cold War, 1945–1991

Description.

Peter G. Tsouras’s A Global History of the Cold War, 1945–1991 offers a comprehensive overview of the multifaceted dynamics that shaped the Cold War era. This scholarly work, spanning 450 pages, provides readers with a nuanced exploration of both the ideological and geopolitical battles that defined the period, making significant contributions to our understanding of this complex historical phenomenon.

• Politics & Social Sciences
• Politics & Government

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West Hardcover – April 16, 2024

• Print length 528 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Crown
• Publication date April 16, 2024
• Dimensions 6.44 x 1.56 x 9.54 inches
• ISBN-10 0593443594
• ISBN-13 978-0593443590
• See all details

Get to know this book

Popular highlight

From the publisher.

Editorial Reviews

About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown (April 16, 2024)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593443594
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593443590
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.8 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.44 x 1.56 x 9.54 inches
• #8 in International Diplomacy (Books)
• #20 in General Elections & Political Process
• #56 in Public Affairs & Policy Politics Books

Videos for this product

Click to play video

Look inside New Cold Wars

🟠🟢 LGJ Reviews 🟢🟠

New Cold Wars

Penguin Random House LLC

New Cold Wars is here!

Geek Main Base

About the author

David e. sanger.

DAVID E. SANGER is national security correspondent for the New York Times and bestselling author of The Inheritance and Confront and Conceal. He has been a member of three teams that won the Pulitzer Prize, including in 2017 for international reporting. A regular contributor to CNN, he also teaches national security policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 75% 15% 7% 2% 2% 75%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 75% 15% 7% 2% 2% 15%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 75% 15% 7% 2% 2% 7%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 75% 15% 7% 2% 2% 2%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 75% 15% 7% 2% 2% 2%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Reviews with images

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

THE COLD WAR

A military history.

by David Miller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999

A dry-as-dust look at the hardware that fought the cold war, by the author of more than 25 works of military history and a veteran of more than 36 years of military service. Miller, who is credited as the author of Jane’s Major Warships, is in dire need of an editor who can whip his senseless listing of weapon system after weapon system into something approaching interesting reading. Though few will argue that the cold war was won by anything other than massive defense spending, there certainly was more to the conflict than weaponry. The Cold War is billed as “A Military History,” but there is almost nothing of the historical details that would illuminate such theaters of action as Korea and Vietnam, almost nothing of the countless espionage cases or the other conflicts that brought the United States and the Soviet Union face to face, whether in actual battle or by proxy, and nothing at all of the millions who actually fought the war. Miller concentrates instead in looking at the submarines, aircraft carriers, missiles, fighter planes, bombers, tanks, and virtually every other tool in the modern major general’s arsenal. Although he describes these weapons in numbing detail, he does little to place them in the broader context of cold-war strategy, as he might have done by looking at how missile ranges affected the superpowers’ relationship with their satellites, or how submarine developments affected the brinksmanship under the seas. Despite his overwrought infatuation with technological details, Miller does offer interesting coverage of the military relationship between the superpowers and their allies, such as NATO’s division of naval duties according to traditional strengths and weaknesses. Most readers, however, will have to supply their own rationales for why, rather than how, the cold war was fought. Not a military history, a hardware history. (16 pages b&w photos)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-312-24183-6

Page Count: 498

Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999

HISTORY | MILITARY | GENERAL NONFICTION

Share your opinion of this book

More by David Miller

BOOK REVIEW

by David Miller & illustrated by David Miller

by Mem Fox & illustrated by David Miller

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

GENERAL NONFICTION

More by E.T.A. Hoffmann

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

Episodes from the life of lady mendl (elsie de wolfe).

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

More by Ludwig Bemelmans

developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno

by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno

by Ludwig Bemelmans

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

ⓒ 2024 Foreword Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved.

• Book Reviews
• Clarion Reviews
• Horror / Historical

Burning Times

A cold war horror story.

James K. Rone Arno Press ( 665pp ) 978-1-73400-095-5

Clarion Rating: 3 out of 5

A woman proves indomitable in the face of extraordinary circumstances in the Cold War–era horror novel Burning Times .

In James K. Rone’s novel Burning Times , atrocities are enacted against so-called witches, and strange capabilities awake in a woman as a result.

Eva, in whom unknown powers lie dormant, is a part of the Women’s Army Corps, stationed in Western Europe in the final years of World War II and at the beginning of the Cold War. Beautiful, sharp, and ambitious, she has had a lifelong compulsion to see Czechoslovakia, her family’s homeland before they fled to Texas for safety. When she receives a mission to infiltrate a Czechoslovakian conference to tout anticommunist ideals, she jumps at the chance to prove herself to her country.

What Eva doesn’t anticipate, however, is the danger she’s in the moment she steps into the medieval castle hosting the conference. The site is overseen by a formidable archbishop, Vladimir. He accuses Eva of witchcraft and plans to use her as a pawn in a secret society’s scheme to revive violent, public “witch” executions.

The narrative often takes the form of a scientific or historical document; at other times, it’s more omniscient. The story hovers above the characters, inspecting their inner lives and revealing their motivations in the moment. For example, Vladimir is convinced that he must prosecute Eva as a witch within hours of meeting her, though his plan to lull her into a false sense of security and capture her is still in development.

Historical details overwhelm the narrative; they are often shared via long swaths of exposition. Elsewhere, characterizations are developed in the same manner. Indeed, the book devotes more space to contextual minutiae than it does to its action, robbing it of tension and dulling its conflicts. Eva’s appearance is also described to excess; her beauty and allure are among the catalysts for her prosecution. The men around her brim with palpable prejudice and lust, finding excuses to ogle, leer, and think about her body, and she devotes too much thought to how people see her.

The book has atmospheric moments, though. It interweaves psychological, genetic, and historical subject matter well. And the brutality that Eva experiences at the hands of her captors, the horrors that innocents face in war, and the insidiousness of misogyny are detailed in startling terms. Eva, in spite of all of her suffering, proves indomitable in the face of extraordinary circumstances.

In the historical fantasy novel Burning Times , a woman struggles against the darkness of resurrected witch trials.

Reviewed by Natalie Wollenzien August 3, 2024

Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Taking too long? Try again or cancel this request .