For the soul of mankind : the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War

Autor: Leffler, Melvyn P.
Rok: 2007
ISBN: 9780809097173
OKCZID: 110027249
Vydání: 1st ed.

Citace (dle ČSN ISO 690):
LEFFLER, Melvyn P. For the soul of mankind: the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. 1st ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007. xx, 586 s.

Hodnocení: 4.5 / 5 (6 hlasů)

Anotace

To the amazement of the public, pundits, and even the policymakers themselves, the ideological and political conflict that had endangered the world for half a century came to an end in 1990. How did that happen? What caused the cold war in the first place, and why did it last as long as it did?The distinguished historian 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: Stalin and Truman devising new policies after 1945; Malenkov and Eisenhower exploring the chance for peace after Stalin’s death in 1953; Kennedy, Khrushchev, and LBJ trying to reduce tensions after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962; and Brezhnev and Carter aiming to sustain détente after the Helsinki Conference of 1975. All these leaders glimpsed possibilities for peace, yet they allowed ideologies, political pressures, the expectations of allies and clients, the dynamics of the international system, and their own fearful memories to trap them in a cycle of hostility that seemed to have no end.Leffler’s important book 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. Melvyn P. Leffler, Stettinius Professor of American History at the University of Virginia, is the author The Specter of Communism (H&W, 1994) and A Preponderance of Power, which won the Bancroft Prize in 1992. He lives in Charlottesville. A Finalist for the Council on Foreign Relations's Arthur Ross Book Award To the amazement of the public, pundits, and even the policymakers themselves, the ideological and political conflict that had endangered the world for half a century came to an end in 1990. In For the Soul of Mankind, historian Melvyn P. Leffler offers his interpretations about what caused the cold war, why it lasted so long, and how it finally came to an end. The distinguished historian 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: Stalin and Truman devising new policies after 1945; Malenkov and Eisenhower exploring the chance for peace after Stalin’s death in 1953; Kennedy, Khrushchev, and LBJ trying to reduce tensions after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962; and Brezhnev and Carter aiming to sustain détente after the Helsinki Conference of 1975. All these leaders glimpsed possibilities for peace, yet they allowed ideologies, political pressures, the expectations of allies and clients, the dynamics of the international system, and their own fearful memories to trap them in a cycle of hostility that seemed to have no end.Leffler’s important book 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. "With a keen eye for telling detail, a concern for the choices of individual leaders, and careful judgments, Leffler generates a narrative that carries the reader along as it develops important new ideas. This landmark study transcends many of our standard arguments about the Cold War to focus on what it was really about. Driving much of the maneuvering for security and advantage was the struggle over which political system could meet people’s needs and produce a better society."—Robert Jervis, Columbia University “Through a series of biographical sketches, Mr. Leffler presents a convincing case, showing how leaders such as Harry Truman and Josef Stalin defined national self-interest in ways that ensured continued tension . . . The triumph of the Reagan-Gorbachev partnership supports Mr. Leffler’s theme of the influence of personality on policy. As this intriguing book thoroughly illustrates, it does matter who leads a nation.”—Philip Seib, The Dallas Morning News"For the Soul of Mankind assesses both what went wrong and what went right in America's diplomatic, military and political interactions with the Soviet Union during the thermonuclear stand-off of the cold war . . . focuses loosely on several moments of tension between the American and Soviet leaders. They include the Truman-Stalin contest over occupied Germany, culminating in the Berlin airlift of 1948-49, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and the tussle between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev over America's 'star wars' missile-shield programme in 1986. Mr. Leffler sees his book as 'a history of lost opportunities' when the cold war could plausibly have taken another course . . . The book succeeds in being even-handed: both sides come under careful scrutiny . . . Mr. Leffler believes in the importance of individuals and their decisions, even if only to understand how both become derailed. 'The cold war was not predetermined. Leaders made choices,' he writes. And, at the end, the choices that mattered were Russian ones. He argues that though America shaped the nature of the contest, Gorbachev was the key figure in its ending. In contrast to such scholars as John Lewis Gaddis, Mr Leffler finds that 'Reagan was critically important, but Gorbachev was the indispensable agent of change' . . . his conclusion is powerful. He laments that all too often 'ideology and historical experience' intensified American leaders' sense of threat . . . At their best, American presidents maintained a delicate balance between power and restraint. They realised that they needed to achieve their goals not through war but through close co-ordination with allies. The book argues that, had they not lost this balance during periods of tension, they might have seen the opportunities hidden beneath the dangers.  Although Mr. Leffler (wisely) leaves parallels to the present day implicit, he clearly has an important lesson to offer: a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. It makes unthinkable changes suddenly possible."—The Economist“The Ford-Brezhnev summit was one of many hopeful high-level encounters that occurred during the cold war, the conflict that shaped world politics for almost 50 years. That decades-long struggle is the subject of Melvyn P. Leffler’s sweeping work, For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. Leffler, who teaches American history at the University of Virginia, is one of America’s most distinguished cold war historians, and this enlightening, readable study is the product of years research and reflection . . . Leffler’s chapters on the origins and the end of the cold war are especially engaging. Using recently released archival material from Soviet and Eastern European sources, he traces the early days of the struggle as Stalin and Truman staked out their positions . . . That it took Soviet and American Statesman decades to end the cold war is perhaps the greatest tragedy in the history of post-1945 world politics. While the struggle never exploded into a US-Soviet conflagration, its costs were astronomical. Nations devoted vast sums to the conflict, and millions of soldiers and civilians died in the hot wars fought in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Africa, and Latin American, all of which were related, directly or indirectly, to the battle between communism and capitalism. The world’s peoples paid a high price indeed for the ‘lost opportunities’ that Professor Leffler has so ably documented.”—Jonathan Rosenberg, The Christian Science Monitor"This is a masterful account of the Cold War by a distinguished historian in full stride. Leffler focuses on critical turning points when crises, leadership changes, and shifting diplomatic landscapes provided opportunities for reducing hostilities. In each episode, he draws vivid portraits of U.S. and Soviet leaders—Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin, Dwight Eisenhower and Georgi Malenkov, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev—as they defined threats and opportunities, navigated politics on the home front, and made strategic choices. Drawing on recently released Soviet documents and a long career as a scholar, Leffler moves beyond the old revisionist and traditionalist debates by offering a more synthetic interpretation that stresses both the imperatives of power politics and the legacies of ideas and history. In explaining the origins of the Cold War, he stresses the overriding importance of Germany; in explaining its persistence, he stresses competition in the developing world. What is most innovative is the attention Leffler pays to ideology and memory as they shaped assessments of international society and shifting power realities. In his view, each side was driven by security fears but also by worldviews and historical lessons that shaped how interests and strategy were perceived . . . The Cold War lasted as long as it did, Leffler concludes, because leaders were trapped in their ideas—until Reagan and Gorbachev were able to break out of these ideological cages. This important book will enlighten and sophisticate the debate on the Cold War, even if it will not end the discussion."—Foreign Affairs"In For the Soul of Mankind [Leffler] examines the Cold War from start to finish, giving equal weight to the Soviet and American sides. That kind of evenhandedness us unusual in works of ...

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