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Summary
Summary
The cold war--the bitter standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union--lasted for over 50 years and polarized the world. The conflict had its roots in political and ideological disagreements dating back to the Russian Revolution of 1917--disagreements that intensified in the wake of World War II. Allan M. Winkler excerpts speeches by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to demonstrate the growing abyss between the two political systems. President Harry S. Truman's announcement of the existence of a Soviet atomic bomb and his speech to Congress launching the Truman Doctrine testify to the gravity of the situation. The cold war was not always "cold"--armed conflicts were narrowly avoided in the Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs, and war did erupt in Korea and Vietnam. The complex politics of the Vietnam War are represented by voices as divergent as Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh, President Lyndon B. Johnson, antiwar protesters, and a participant in the My Lai massacre. Cold war paranoia permeated American society. The investigations of writer Ring Lardner, Jr., and government official Alger Hiss by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, along with speeches by Senator Joe McCarthy, lay bare the political repression at home generated by the perceived communist threat. Excerpts from Arthur Miller's play The Crucible and the film script of High Noon capture the mood of uncertainty and fear. A picture essay entitled "The Atom Unleashed" collects photographs and cartoons to explore one of the most controversial discoveries of the 20th century. Agreements made in the SALT treaties show the cold war finally coming to an end. In his 1992 State of the Union address, President Bush declared, "By the grace of God, America won the cold war."
Author Notes
Allan M. Winkler is Professor of History and former Chair of the History Department at Miami University, Oxford, OH. His recent books include America: Pathways to the Present and Life under a Cloud: American Anxiety about the Atom (OUP, 1993).
Reviews (2)
Horn Book Review
This substantial, intriguing collection uses primary sources from transcripts, reports, political speeches, and pop culture icons to explain the events and policies of the Cold War, while introductory paragraphs provide context. Generous photos, maps, facsimiles, and political cartoons convey the feel of this era in U.S. history, which includes the McCarthy hearings, Vietnam, and the atomic age. A time line is included. Bib., ind. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
The publisher's Pages from History series stresses how historians contextualize and interpret primary sources. The series is useful for student-researchers and recreational readers, especially for subjects pregnant with difficult interpretive issues, as are the Civil War and the Cold War. And interestingly, these volumes reveal their own judgments about what is of greater, and lesser, significance about these nation-shaping events. Seidman's documents bookend the Civil War with the territorial expansion that preceded the conflict and with the Reconstruction that followed it. In this structure the documents, under the guidance of Seidman's linking narrative, all make a powerful impression of immediacy about ordinary people's experience of, and condemnation or defense of, slavery. In the sections of the war proper, Seidman continues the emphasis on the ordinary person's experience, whether a soldier or a "contraband" slave creating pressures on civil and military authorities. The course of actual military events thereby shrinks to secondary status, with relatively few documents presented about battles, campaigns, and leaders (Gettysburg is an exception). Such is Seidman's interpretive decision, and it's a respectable one in the historiography of the war--among others that could have been made--yet making decisions makes historical research interesting. Winkler, a highly reputable historian, decides that the domestic politics of the cold war are the most significant aspect of the US-USSR face-off. He plainly writes that his selection of documents "charts the course of U.S. policy," and he selects none from the Communist camp (save two by Ho Chi Minh). His spotlight--especially in photographic imagery--falls on McCarthyism key official documents such as 1950s NSC-68, which codified containment, and antinuclear and anti-Vietnam protest. For books making the vital point that history must be read actively, not passively, Winkler's and Seidman's interesting volumes themselves embody their message. Gilbert Taylor
Table of Contents
| What is a Document? | p. 6 |
| How to Read a Document | p. 8 |
| Introduction | p. 10 |
| Chapter 1 Early Antagonism | p. 17 |
| Origin of the Atomic Bomb | p. 18 |
| Tensions and Strategies | p. 20 |
| The Truman Doctrine | p. 26 |
| The Marshall Plan | p. 29 |
| A Soviet Bomb | p. 32 |
| The China White Paper | p. 34 |
| NSC-68 | p. 36 |
| War in Korea | p. 39 |
| Chapter 2 The Anticommunist Crusade | p. 45 |
| Hollywood and HUAC | p. 46 |
| Chambers vs. Hiss | p. 50 |
| The Rosenbergs on Trial | p. 56 |
| Senator Joe McCarthy | p. 60 |
| Cultural Responses | p. 64 |
| Army vs. McCarthy | p. 66 |
| Chapter 3 To the Brink | p. 71 |
| Eisenhower's Inaugural Address | p. 72 |
| Liberation of Captive Peoples | p. 73 |
| The Domino Theory | p. 76 |
| Unstable Peace | p. 80 |
| Kennedy's Inaugural Address | p. 85 |
| Bay of Pigs | p. 87 |
| Standing Up to the Soviets | p. 89 |
| The Cuban Missile Crisis | p. 91 |
| Chapter 4 Picture Essay: The Atom Unleashed | p. 97 |
| Chapter 5 Catastrophe in Vietnam | p. 107 |
| French Colonial Rule | p. 108 |
| War in Indochina | p. 110 |
| The Geneva Conference | p. 113 |
| Nation Building in Vietnam | p. 115 |
| Horrors of War | p. 122 |
| Antiwar Movement | p. 125 |
| Vietnamization | p. 128 |
| Reuinification | p. 130 |
| Chapter 6 An End at Last | p. 133 |
| The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 | p. 133 |
| SALT Treaties | p. 136 |
| Reagan's Nuclear Strategy | p. 140 |
| An End to the Cold War | p. 143 |
| Timeline | p. 146 |
| Further Reading | p. 148 |
| Credits | p. 150 |
| Index | p. 155 |
