Introduction
The Cold War was the defining feature of political history during the second half of the 20th century. Given its importance for shaping the political structures that continue to define the outlook of the contemporary world, it is no wonder that the topic continues to attract scholarly attention. John L. Gaddis’s The Cold War: A New History attempts to provide a thorough yet sufficiently concise coverage of the global conflict in retrospect touching on all of its essential aspects.
As follows from the title, the book follows the conflict between the Communist bloc led by the USSR and the association of non-Communist countries led by the United States. It covers the entire span of the Cold War, from the immediate aftermath of Hitler’s defeat to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The author focuses on describing the development of the conflict from the threat of the new World War in the late 1940s to the new era of hope for democracy by the late 1980s.
Author’s Qualifications
The author’s qualifications for writing the book in question are undeniable and sufficient. At the time of writing this particular book, Gaddis had already authored several other ones about the Cold War and was also teaching a course about it at Yale University (vii-viii). Apart from that – and in contrast to the younger audiences at whom the book is largely directed – Gaddis also witnessed the events of the Cold War in person as they unfolded. This personal perspective, while necessarily one-sided, also adds to his competencies in covering the subject. As such, the author is qualified to write about the subject both as a professional historian analyzing it post factum and as someone with a primary experience of the events of the Cold War.
Sources
Throughout the book, the author uses a wide variety of sources, both primary and secondary. However, these are predominantly and even overwhelmingly English-language, which necessarily limits the book’s scope. The lack of primary sources from Communist countries and especially former Soviet archives is particularly ironic given that Gaddis himself notes that “Soviet, East European, and Chinese archives have begun to open” (viii). This lack of Soviet primary sources may explain the author’s occasional anti-Soviet bias. For example, Gaddis criticizes Stalin for forcefully imposing subservient regimes in Poland and other European countries, thus, ensuring that the United States and the British Empire “could no longer trust him” (22).
He, however, fails to mention that Stalin had already tried to negotiate a diplomatic agreement ensuring collective security in Europe before the Second World War and was repeatedly rejected by the West (Carley 203). In other words, Stalin had reasons to believe that pursuing diplomatic agreements with the West was futile and that only direct military control could secure Soviet borders, but the book does not mention it. This is most likely the outcome of insufficient use of foreign language primary sources.
Author’s Thesis & Evaluation
The author’s central thesis in writing the book is his interpretation of the Cold War as the historical period of gradual resurgence of hope for democracy around the world. Gaddis interprets the entire history of the Cold War as that of gradual progress from fears of the new total war and nuclear annihilation in 1945 to the global turn toward democracy by 1991. To use the author’s own words, the Cold War “began with a return of fear and ended in a triumph of hope, an unusual trajectory for great historical upheavals” (Gaddis 266).
Fully in line with this approach, the first and last chapters of the book are titled “The Return of Fear” and “The Triumph of Hope,” respectively. Throughout the book, Gaddis explains this imagined trajectory touching on the different aspects of the Cold War, such as confrontations in foreign policy, competition of political systems, and economic and social reform.
The fear part of the author’s argument is very well-developed and fleshed out in the early chapters of the book. The author outlines the emergence of the political conflict between the world’s new superpowers in the late 1940s in sufficient detail. After that, he pays particular attention to the history of nuclear proliferation and the refusal to use those during the numerous crises during the Cold War. In the second chapter, he discusses how the Korean War led both the American and the Soviet leadership to a decision that only the head of state could authorize the use of nuclear weapons (Gaddis 55-58). He also analyzes how the realistic thinking of Kenned and Khrushchev prevented mutual nuclear destruction during the Cuban Missile Crisis (75-80).
Analyzing these crises, Gaddis demonstrates the acute reality of the fear of nuclear annihilation during the 1950s and the early 1960s and underscores the importance of both sides’ restraint. Thus, one can agree with this part of the argument and the author’s assessment of the normative inhibition against using nuclear weapons as one of the most important outcomes of the Cold War.
As for the hope part of the argument, it is also fairly convincing. Firstly, the author discusses Western efforts to reform capitalism along the liberal-democratic lines. Combined, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank served “to lessen the possibility of future depressions by lowering tariff barriers, stabilizing currencies, and coordinating government planning” (Gaddis 93).
In contrast, while Western countries worked to mitigate the negative effects of capitalism, the communist government proved unable to reform. Secondly, Gaddis discusses how the precarious balance between the two superpowers contesting global influence unexpectedly led to new opportunities for smaller nations. As he notes, smaller countries could choose non-alignment to receive proposals from both sides or, even if devoted to a chosen camp, “advertise a propensity to topple” to earn increased support and autonomy (Gaddis 129). Finally, the author argues that the checks and balances of liberal democracies preventing abuse of power, as in Nixon’s Watergate, also gave them a higher moral standing (Gaddis 180). Put together, these factors demonstrated that hope resided with liberalism and capitalism rather than authoritarianism and communism.
That being said, the author’s account is not exhaustive and can sometimes feature dramatic exaggerations. Some of these shortcomings are understandable due to the necessity of covering the entire Cold War in a relatively short book. For example, Gaddis could mention the public hysteria that engulfed America at the beginning of the Korean War and flooded the White House with letters and telegrams urging for a nuclear option (Masuda 60-63).
Covering this would emphasize the importance of Truman’s resolve in not using atomic bombs even better, but the omission is understandable given the constraints. Other shortcomings are harder to justify – for example, Gaddis’s statement that the Cuban Missile Crisis ensured that “war could no longer be an instrument of statecraft” is just blatantly false (81). Not only has the world seen a fair share of (albeit limited) state-based wars since 1962, there were even military conflicts between nuclear powers, such as the 1999 Kargil War between India and Pakistan. Thus, in some cases, the author is prone to exaggerated claims, probably for the sake of dramatic value.
Conclusion
In short, the book represents a concise yet sufficiently thorough coverage of the Cold War in its entirety. The author’s qualification for writing the book is indisputable, even though it would benefit from more extensive use of foreign – and, in particular, Soviet – primary sources. The overall interpretation of the Cold War as gradually shifting from the fear of total war and nuclear annihilation to the new era of hope for democracy even in the recently authoritarian countries is convincing. The author’s coverage of the subsequent crises and the political resolve that prevented them from escalating into nuclear exchange explains the reasons for eventually subsided fear.
Similarly, the efforts in reforming capitalism along liberal lines and maintaining checks and balances that made Western governments more accountable eventually demonstrated that the hope for a better future is not in communism. Admittedly, the book’s brevity limits the amount of relevant material it can provide, and the author is sometimes prone to dramatic exaggerations. Still, these shortcomings do not prevent The Cold War: A New History from being a solid take on the topic.
Works Cited
Carley, Michael J. “‘Only the USSR Has … Clean Hands’: The Soviet Perspective on the Failure of Collective Security and the Collapse of Czechoslovakia, 1934–1938 (Part 1).” Diplomacy & Statecraft, vol. 21, no. 2, 2010, pp. 202-225.
Gaddis, John L. The Cold War: A New History. Penguin, 2006.
Masuda, Hajimu. Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World. Harvard UP, 2015.