The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History

This latest edition of our classic text draws on analysis of new material released from archives in Moscow, Beijing, Hanoi, and other capitals of communist-bloc nations―helping to develop a truly international history of the Cold War, a complex and dynamic conflict that lasted more than forty years and continues to shape the foreign policy of the United States and other nations. Another important recent trend considered is the intensive study of the role of ideology in influencing policy on both sides of the conflict. Dr. Levering holds that the liberal internationalism espoused by leading Democrats and Republicans during World War II, plus most Americans’ profound dislike of communism and communists, contributed greatly to America’s decision to oppose postwar Soviet foreign policy. Many recent studies of the Cold War emphasize the role of Marxist-Leninist ideology in postwar Soviet and Chinese foreign policy. Although these new directions in scholarship are important, the basic emphases of the original edition remains the same―U.S. actions and public opinion and relations between the two leading actors in the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union. Enhanced as well is coverage of the two large-scale but limited wars that grew out of the conflict, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and of the most dangerous confrontation of the nuclear age thus far, the Cuban missile crisis.