Product Description

In 1950, when Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il-Sung met in Moscow to discuss the future, they had reason to feel optimistic. International Communism seemed everywhere on the offensive: all of Eastern Europe was securely in the Soviet camp; America's monopoly on nuclear weapons was a thing of the past; and Mao's forces had assumed control over the world's most populous country. The story of the previous five decades was one of the worst fears confirmed, and there seemed as of 1950 little sign, at least to the West, that the next fifty years would be any less dark. In fact, of course, the century's end brought the widespread triumph of political and economic freedom over its ideological enemies. In The Cold War, John Lewis Gaddis makes a major contribution to our understanding of this epochal story. Beginning with the Second World War and ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union, he provides a thrilling account of the strategic dynamics that drove the age. Now, as Britain once more finds itself in a global confrontation with an implacable ideological enemy, The Cold War tells a story whose lessons it is vitally necessary to understand.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30597 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Spectator
'Force 9 on the Richter Scale'

Len Deighton
'Gripping'

Independent on Sunday
'Superb ... brimful of racy incident'

Customer Reviews

Reagan the hero?.......
In the books preface John Lewis Gaddis explains that The Cold War was written following requests by both his editor and his students for a short, comprehensive, and accessible book on the cold war, as an alternative to the authors more weighty efforts. He has succeeded in doing this, managing to restrict the book to only 266 pages whilst covering the entire span of the conflict, and this means of course that the book could only ever be a brief overview of the subject and is therefore only interesting as an introduction.

Whilst I enjoyed the book I couldnt help feeling that the author was more than a little one eyed when coming to many of his conclusions, and I do wonder about his seeming hero worship of Ronald Reagan. Was Reagan really, as Gaddis suggests, one of the most skilled politicians the US had had for many years, and one of its sharpest ever grand strategists? Was it really his great strength that he was possesed of an ability to see beyond complexity to simplicity? Im not so sure..

In short, worth a read as an introduction.

Best analysis of the Cold War in its price range for the general reader
This book is analyses the cold War in great detail, striking just the right balance between depth and breadth. There is an extremely interesting opening chapter about the sharp differences in experiences of World War II that the USA and USSR had, and how this deeply influenced their attitude in the opening stages of the Cold War. There are also interesting points raised about how both sides had, at least for most of the conflict, a very strong interest in tolerating the other's existence.

The author also analyses how the early 1980s, with growing gulfs in military technology between the West and East, coupled with confrontational, confident Western leaders combined with internal problems and rebellions in Communist states to end the war, almost as quickly as it had started. There is also an interesting epilogue to draw together everything that has been covered. The only slight weakness with the book, and this seems to be common in books on the Cold War, is its very brief analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, the book is the best in its price range for the subject matter, and is the most "user friendly" type of book for the general reader and for interested history readers, although professional historians may need to supplement their study of this book with a "heavier" text, especially ones which deal with the aforementioned weak points of analysis

A very readable history of the Cold War
To write an engaging and wide-ranging history of the Cold War decades in 266 pages is no mean feat, but Gaddis has, on the whole, achieved this.
Obviously, it's easy to criticise what he may have left out - perhaps a closer examination of the economic dynamics within the Soviet system towards the end of the priod might have been useful, while there are only perfunctory glimpses of the "proxy" conflicts which played out in the developing world. Intended or not, the author's soft spot for Reagan is obvious in the later chapters, while the manifold failings of later Soviet leaders, Gorbachev largely exempted, are laid bare with a certain relish.
Nevertheless, this is a concise, lively and popular historical account of the Cold War, enlivened by judicious use of quotations from the key players and candid assessments of political leaders, both East and West.