The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the Origins of the Cold War [Paperback]

Fraser J. Harbutt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195054229 | ISBN-13: 978-0195054224 | Publication Date: October 13, 1988

It was forty-two years ago that Winston Churchill made his famous speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he popularized the phrase "Iron Curtain." This speech, according to Fraser Harbutt, set forth the basic Western ideology of the coming East-West struggle. It was also a calculated move within, and a dramatic public definition of, the Truman administration's concurrent turn from accommodation to confrontation with the Soviet Union. It provoked a response from Stalin that goes far to explain the advent of the Cold War a few weeks later. This book is at once a fascinating biography of Winston Churchill as the leading protagonist of an Anglo-American political and military front against the Soviet Union and a penetrating re-examination of diplomatic relations between the United States, Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R. in the postwar years. Pointing out the Americocentric bias in most histories of this period, Harbutt shows that the Europeans played a more significant part in precipitating the Cold War than most people realize. He stresses that the same pattern of events that earlier led America belatedly into two world wars, namely the initial separation and then the sudden coming together of the European and American political arenas, appeared here as well. From the combination of biographical and structural approaches, a new historical landscape emerges. The United States appears at times to be the rather passive object of competing Soviet and British maneuvers. The turning point came with the crisis of early 1946, which here receives its fullest analysis to date, when the Truman administration in a systematic but carefully veiled and still widely misunderstood reorientation of policy (in which Churchill figured prominently) led the Soviet Union into the political confrontation that brought on the Cold War.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

For most Americans the origins and images of the Cold War are limited to U.S.-Soviet interaction since 1945. British historian Harbutt argues, however, that the Cold War actually began as the result of long-standing Anglo-Soviet differences, the most crucial of which concerned the limits of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Iran. The United States, he says, was a rather reluctant Cold warrior and took up the British cause only after persistent lobbying by Winston Churchill and a series of provocative Soviet moves in the Near East. The work is highly analytical in nature (there is an excellent analysis of Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" address) and gives significant insight into the evolution of Anglo-American attitudes towards Stalinist expansion. Though at times a bit too speculative, the narrative is basically well substantiated. A solid work suitable for most academic libraries. Joseph W. Constance, Jr., Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"This is a lucid and sophisticated analysis, which makes thorough use of British and American archives and integrates the results effectively with press releases from both countries and Russia....A stimulating and important contribution to the debate about the origins of the Cold War."--Times Literary Supplement

"Gives significant insight into the evolution of Anglo-American attitudes toward Stalinist expansion....A solid work."--Library Journal

"Tightly argued.....This work provides an interesting closer look at a period that was indeed a turning point."--The New York Times Book Review

"Harbutt's judicious and well-written account of the fateful international realignment of 1946 will surely influence profoundly our understanding of this critical period."--Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 13, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195054229
• ISBN-13: 978-0195054224
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,121,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great!, March 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Iron Curtain: Churchill, America, and the Origins of the Cold War (Hardcover)

I needed a book for my report on the "Iron Curtain". So I went to the book store and bought this book. I read it and got a lot of useful information and ended up getting an "A" on my report! Not only did the book have a lot of information, it was interesting to read also!