Cold War
Cold War Historiography: New Evidence Behind Traditional Typographies
Timothy J. White
For Americans and many in the world, the Cold War dominated international relations from 1945-1991. Only the nuclear balance of terror prevented this uneasy peace from becoming all out war, and few if any events could be understood outside of the context of this bipolar rivalry. As the Cold War came to an end, some thought we had witnessed "an end to history."(1) Instead, we have witnessed a fundamental change in the logic of world politics. The United States has had difficulty developing a clear and coherent foreign policy in this new era. The New World Order of President Bush and the strategy of engagement and enlargement of President Clinton seem vague and ambiguous when compared to the clarity and simplicity of the American policy of containment during the Cold War. While this policy of containment rapidly gained a consensus both among the American foreign policy elite as well as the mass public after World War Il, it did represent a fundamental shift of relations with the Soviet Union from one of wartime cooperation. Explaining the origins of the Cold War has been one of the most common and contested topics in the study of American diplomatic history, and the end of the Cold War has changed how historians examine and interpret this period. Increasingly, scholars have gained access to documents, especially on the Soviet side, that have allowed them to go beyond past conjecture and utilize archival evidence. The end of the Cold War has removed much of the passion that surrounded writing Cold War history while scholars and states were still living it. This increased detachment has allowed historians to move from placing blame to recognizing the ideological conflict that was at the center of the Cold War's origins.
Reexamining the Origins of the Cold War
Traditionally, those who have offered explanations of the Cold War have been classified according to a three-fold
Timothy J. White
For Americans and many in the world, the Cold War dominated international relations from 1945-1991. Only the nuclear balance of terror prevented this uneasy peace from becoming all out war, and few if any events could be understood outside of the context of this bipolar rivalry. As the Cold War came to an end, some thought we had witnessed "an end to history."(1) Instead, we have witnessed a fundamental change in the logic of world politics. The United States has had difficulty developing a clear and coherent foreign policy in this new era. The New World Order of President Bush and the strategy of engagement and enlargement of President Clinton seem vague and ambiguous when compared to the clarity and simplicity of the American policy of containment during the Cold War. While this policy of containment rapidly gained a consensus both among the American foreign policy elite as well as the mass public after World War Il, it did represent a fundamental shift of relations with the Soviet Union from one of wartime cooperation. Explaining the origins of the Cold War has been one of the most common and contested topics in the study of American diplomatic history, and the end of the Cold War has changed how historians examine and interpret this period. Increasingly, scholars have gained access to documents, especially on the Soviet side, that have allowed them to go beyond past conjecture and utilize archival evidence. The end of the Cold War has removed much of the passion that surrounded writing Cold War history while scholars and states were still living it. This increased detachment has allowed historians to move from placing blame to recognizing the ideological conflict that was at the center of the Cold War's origins.
Reexamining the Origins of the Cold War
Traditionally, those who have offered explanations of the Cold War have been classified according to a three-fold