For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War
Author: Melvyn P Leffler
“A highly relevant and much-needed historical study . . . One of the best books on the period to have been written.” —The Economist
To the amazement of the public, pundits, and even the policymakers themselves, the ideological and political conflict that endangered the world for half a century came to an end in 1990. How did that happen? What had caused the cold war in the first place, and why did it last as long as it did? To answer these questions, Melvyn P. Leffler homes in on four crucial episodes when American and Soviet leaders considered modulating, avoiding, or ending hostilities and asks why they failed. He then illuminates how Reagan, Bush, and, above all, Gorbachev finally extricated themselves from the policies and mind-sets that had imprisoned their predecessors, and were able to reconfigure Soviet-American relations after decades of confrontation.
The Washington Post - Richard Rhodes
He tells a good story. Leffler explains in his introduction that For the Soul of Mankind is a narrative of five momentous Cold War episodes rather than a full history. The first episode, about Stalin, Truman and the origins of the Cold War, feels perfunctory—Leffler published an excellent book on the subject, The Preponderance of Power, in 1992. But the University of Virginia historian finds his voice in energetic examinations of the promising turmoil in the Politburo following Stalin's death in 1953, the near-Armageddon of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the erosion of detente in the Carter years and the end of the Cold War at the hands of Gorbachev, Reagan and George H. W. Bush.
Publishers Weekly
Drawing on extensive research in American and Soviet archives, Bancroft Prize-winner Leffler (A Preponderance of Power) offers a scintillating account of the forces that constrained Soviet and American leaders in the second half of the 20th century. Leffler begins by admitting that he was shocked by the rapid demise of communism. If Reagan and Gorbachev could end the Cold War, why hadn't earlier leaders been able to do so? To answer that question, Leffler examines five crucial moments when Washington and Moscow "thought about avoiding or modulating the extreme tension" between them. At the end of WWII, Leffler says, Stalin thought that cooperation with the West might be preferable to entrenched hostility. Yet he and Truman were pressed by an "international order that engendered... fear" to make decisions that led to Cold War and shaped policy for decades. Leffler examines why Eisenhower and Malenkov couldn't wipe the slate clean after Stalin's death; how Khrushchev, Kennedy and Johnson reacted to the pressures of international allies and domestic political enemies; why détente foundered under Carter and Brezhnev, and what circumstances allowed leaders of the 1980s to focus on common interests rather than differences. Leffler has produced possibly the most readable and insightful study of the Cold War yet. 47 b&w illus., 6 maps. (Sept.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationKirkus Reviews
The Cold War began under murky and not entirely planned circumstances governed by individual personalities. So, writes Leffler (History/Univ. of Virginia; The Specter of Communism: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917-1953, 1994, etc.), did it end, thanks to two personalities in particular. The U.S. and the Soviet Union made sometimes uncomfortable allies in the war against Hitler, but they were allies all the same. When that war ended, Leffler observes, there was a world to divide up; Stalin had his agenda, but so did Harry Truman, who demanded that America enjoy 85 percent of any given pie rather than a nice 50-50 split. Stalin took a dim view of that math; and in all events, when the U.S. announced that it would never again be caught napping or give up its military superiority, and that it would "hold the atomic bomb as a 'sacred trust' for all mankind," Stalin felt hemmed in, even blackmailed. Leffler does a creditable job of depicting the ensuing Cold War from the point of view of the Soviet leadership as well as from the already well-documented American one, and he turns up surprises: one, for instance, that the Soviet leadership, urged along by Lavrentiy Beria, was exploring the possibility of allowing German to reunify as a neutral power, a far better alternative in his mind than "a permanently unstable socialist Germany whose survival relied on the support of the Soviet Union." That plan went nowhere: Stalin died; Beria was executed; and another generation of East-West confrontation would ensue. Leffler's interest lies in the personalities of the leaders who enabled detente, and finally an end to the Cold War-foremost among them, in his assessment, MikhailGorbachev, who "made the most fundamental alterations in his own thinking" in order to accept a fundamental shift in the world's political order. (Reagan had something to do with it, too, writes Leffler. But Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev? Useless.)A well-balanced and illuminating history of the Cold War.
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations ixList of Maps xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 3
The Origins of the Cold War, 1945-48: Stalin and Truman 11
Stalin the Revolutionary 11
Stalin in World War II 20
Truman 37
Stalin and Truman 48
International Anarchy 57
Politics at Home 70
Allies and Clients 75
Ideology, Personality, and the International System 79
The Chance for Peace, 1953-54: Malenkov and Eisenhower 84
Stalin's Death 84
Eisenhower's Response 95
Turmoil in the Kremlin 114
A Chance for Peace? 122
Arms Control, Germany, and Indochina 138
Fear and Power 147
Retreat from Armageddon, 1962-65: Khrushchev, Kennedy, and Johnson 151
At the Brink 151
Khrushchev's Retreat 158
Kennedy Bides His Time 174
Give Peace a Chance 182
Starting Anew and Ending Abruptly 192
Johnson's Agonies and Choices 201
From Armageddon Back to Cold War 224
The Erosion of Detente, 1975-80: Brezhnev and Carter 234
Brezhnev and Detente 234
A New Face in Washington, an Old One in Moscow 259
Clients, Hegemons, and Allies 273
The China Card 288
Iran and Afghanistan 299
The Vienna Summit 311
Nicaragua and Afghanistan 319
The End of Detente 334
The End of the Cold War, 1985-90: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Bush 338
Morning in America 339
Twilight in Moscow 365
Arms Reductions 374
The Troops Come Out 403
New Thinking, Old Thinking 414
The Wall Comes Down 427
Two Countries Become One 439
Gorbachev, Reagan, and Bush 448
Conclusion 451
Notes 469
Bibliography 545
Index 571
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Rethinking American History in a Global Age
Author: Thomas Bender
In rethinking and reframing the American national narrative in a wider context, the contributors to this volume ask questions about both nationalism and the discipline of history itself. The essays offer fresh ways of thinking about the traditional themes and periods of American history. By locating the study of American history in a transnational context, they examine the history of nation-making and the relation of the United States to other nations and to transnational developments. What is now called globalization is here placed in a historical context.
A cast of distinguished historians from the United States and abroad examines the historiographical implications of such a reframing and offers alternative interpretations of large questions of American history ranging from the era of European contact to democracy and reform, from environmental and economic development and migration experiences to issues of nationalism and identity. But the largest issue explored is basic to all histories: How does one understand, teach, and write a national history even as one recognizes that the territorial boundaries do not fully contain that history and that within that bounded territory the society is highly differentiated, marked by multiple solidarities and identities?
Rethinking American History in a Global Age advances an emerging but important conversation marked by divergent voices, many of which are represented here. The various essays explore big concepts and offer historical narratives that enrich the content and context of American history. The aim is to provide a history that more accurately reflects the dimensions of American experience and better connects the past withcontemporary concerns for American identity, structures of power, and world presence.
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