Read more
Informationen zum Autor Albert L. Weeks served in the U.S. Department of State as senior Soviet analyst during the Cold War and is the author of several books on international affairs. Klappentext Myths of the Cold War: Amending Historiographic Distortions provides a corrective for the distortions and omissions of many previous domestic and foreign (including Russian) studies of the Cold War, especially those published since 2000. The "present interest" motivation in Weeks's analysis is gaining a clear understanding of the bi-polar, $4 trillion, nuclear-war-threatening standoff that lasted over 40 years after World War II until the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.Without such knowledge and understanding of this dangerous conflict, any future encounter of the cold-war type with another nation-state is liable to be construed in confusing ways just as the U.S.-Soviet Cold War was. The consequence of such misunderstanding in the historiographic sense as well as in policy-making at the highest level is that the populations of the contending powers will have distorted conceptions of the reasons for the confrontation. The result of this, in turn, is skewed tendentiousness that masks concrete, underlying causes of intense inter-state contention.Practical benefits thus flow from an unprejudiced analysis of the past Cold War with Communist Russia. This understanding can help prevent a future conflict, such as one with Communist China, which some reputed sinologists are currently predicting, as well as one with post-Soviet Russia. Conversely, if a new cold war is imposed on the West, a clearer understanding of the post-World War II archetypical Cold War will be edifying. Zusammenfassung In this book! Albert L. Weeks provides a lucid analysis of the Cold War as he dispels the myths that have made their way into contemporary historiography on the topic! while using the conflict as a lens through which to view contemporary crises! such as Russia's recent intervention in Ukraine. Inhaltsverzeichnis TABLE OF CONTENTSCHAPTER I Introduction; Distorted Cold War HistoriographyCHAPTER 2 Cold War Basics·Looming Cold War, 1943-1946·Cold War Calendar·A "New" Postwar Stalin?CHAPTER 3 Myth of Ideological Irrelevance·Ideology and the Cold War·The Realist View·Traditionalist View·Soviet Diplomatic "Warfare"CHAPTER 4 Fallacy of Stalin's "Defencist Security"·Stalin's Empty Argument·Moscow's Post-Soviet Attempts at Unity·Soviet Doctrine of Expansion·Finland·Ukraine·Other Borderland Countries·Special Cases of the Baltic States and Poland·Expansion if the Far East·American Reaction·Prewar, Wartime, Postwar Soviet Expansion·Soviet Expansion, 1940-1946·Expansionism of 1939 to June 1941·Resistance to Further ExpansionCHAPTER 5 Cold War Clash Over New Postwar World·The Roosevelt Factor ·Stalin's "World" vs. Western Projection·Clashes Between "Civilizations"CHAPTER 6 Current Russian Texts on the Cold War ·Post-Soviet Textbooks·Other Post-Soviet BooksCHAPTER 7 Lessons for the "Next" Cold War·China Cold War Case·Avoiding old Wars·Preventive Measures·How "Marxist" Is China?·Conclusions APPENDIX I OWI/War Department Handbook on USSR (1946) APPENDIX II Stalin's and Molotov's Electoral Speeches, February 1946 APPENDIX III Andrei A. Zhdanov on "Two-World Struggle"...
