Customer Reviews

America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945 - 2000

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LaFeber's book certainly deserves its place in the canon of Cold War scholarship. The writing is concise, accessible, and witty, while the scholarship is excellent. This book will be invaluable to anyone looking for an introduction to superpower relations in the Cold War era.

I must admit I am surprised to find LaFeber's work attacked from the "left" by the esteemed reviewer from Edgewood, Washington. After all, LaFeber has received criticism almost exclusively from the right. It is true, as the reviewer points out, that the book does not deal extensively with the Third World aspects of the Cold War. That is because the title of the book is not "The Complete History of the Cold War," but rather "America, Russia, and the Cold War."

The reviewer from Washington's heart is certainly in the right place. I agree that the Cold War was often experienced as a "Hot War" by the Southern Hemisphere. But LaFeber's book explicitly examines the United States and the Soviet Union during this era. The Third World civil wars and insurgencies of this period were seldom directly related to U.S.-Russian relations. The reviewer's examples of Vietnam and Nicaragua are good ones, but they are misplaced. He is aiming his barbs at the wrong historian. True, Noam Chomsky has led the effort to recognize Third World suffering in the Cold War era. But so has Walter LaFeber. I refer you especially to Inevitable Revolutions.

I applaud the reviewer's conviction. I only wish he would direct his criticisms at more legitimate targets, such as John Lewis Gaddis and Tony Smith.

Previous reviewers on Amazon.com have called LaFeber's opus 'Revisionist Junk' which only shows the ignorance of this reader who hasn't the guts to publish their name. It is unlikely that this person has even read the book. LaFeber presents with strong documentary evidence, particularly new evidence that has only recently been released in the US and former Soviet Union, that details the events that led the two countries into the cold war. These documents and other evidence do not portray the US as big and bad nor does it portary the USSR as the poor Russians, rather it is an even account of how misunderstandings on behalf of both countries led the two down the path of fifty years of cold war. LaFeber shows that security concerns, and economic concerns are part of one's security, led the two nations into conflict. Ideology is a small part of this conflict, and economics makes up a part of ideology. LaFeber shows how these mutual misunderstandings and continual distrust that had been growing between these two emerging powers since the end of the 19th century played as important part in the coming of the cold war as any 'traditional' sources. LaFeber's book is one of the most concise, readable, and accurate explanations of the Cold War available. It is a must read for anyone interested in this time period, and one should not be deterred by the ignorance of one who thinks that revisionist is a curse word and who's mind is shut by their own ideological beliefs.

LaFeber presents an indepth analysis of the causes, events and results of the Cold War. The issues are discussed in coherant and logical manner, arguments are tight and well supported. The book offers much valuble insight to the cold war, especially for students studing the topic.

Many people, and historians, either rank this book as communistic sewer filth or as the proverbial bible of the Cold War. This diversity in opinions comes from a disparity in the points of view of the various readers. Everyone needs to take a step back and look at this particular book for what it is. At its core this book is a very useful source of information and a concise analysis of the topic. Some criticism of the book focuses on the so-called "skewed sense of values" that Lafeber applies to international conflicts in his work. But despite any criticism, the book flows logically and it much more resembles a novel than a dictionary in terms of readability. My advice is read this book to get a firm understanding of the events that occured; a great threshold for the rest of your studies. Just keep in mind that there is another side to the issues it deals with before you really make any opinions.

I started this book with high hopes, as the arena of cold war history holds a particular appeal to me. The problem that Lafeber has in assessing the era is that he continually makes assertions at a maddening pace--hardly a paragraph goes by without it them--when such assertions are extremely debatable, sometimes in very obvious ways, and worse, largely incorrect. Thus, when he explains that Reagan won the election with only 51 percent over Carter, he leaves out the fact that a significant third-party vote kept his opponent to a 10-point loss. It seems strange that such a bar for explaining presidential popularity didn't exist for Clinton, who never won a popular vote, but merely a plurality.

Similarly, the Reagan years are treated as failures, with unequivocal judgements (in Nicaragua and El Salvador, for example) about events there not balanced by the fact that both countries later became better off. You might think that Reagan would be praised for bankrupting the Soviet Union (See numerous references that are available by Soviet Officials who were in a position to know), but somehow this author can't seem to come to grips with that.

If you prefer history that is better based in solid facts or context, you will be best served by looking elsewhere. This book is largely leftist revisionism.

The above reviewer is obviously neither a student nor a reader of history because they have failed to take into account all the quantattive evidence nesscessary in the study of the Cold War. They have streched Cold War scholarship across the procrustean bed of dogma that so often accompanies such biased evaluations of its respective examinors. Evaluation of history and the innability to study more than a very limited spectrum due to narrow minded egotism are, by nature, diameterically opposed. Anyone who can neither recognize the validity or at the very least appreciate the arguments of conflicting historical works has no more right to write a book review than they do to read books or study history. If you wish to construct a good basis of knowledge in the causation and polictical confrontations of the Cold War read this book, Gaddis's "We Now Know", and Ambrose's "Rise to Globalism". Dont become another victim of the accumulated body of egotism that caused the Cold War in the first place.

Bad history is one thing. Bad history that is put into textbook form is even worse. Lafeber is one of those revisionist historians who love to talk about the big bad US and the poor Russians and the misunderstood Stalin. This book as with most revisionist history is an attempt to justify some sort of left-wing political agenda. Just read how the book makes Henry Wallace into some sort of hero while Harry Truman is made into a villian. This book often ignores the facts and current documentary evidence. For good cold war history read Gaddis, or Ferrell not this!