The United States and the End of the Cold War

In this provocative and insightful book, John Lewis Gaddis offers a number of thoughtful essays on the history of international relations during the last half century. Perceptively reassessing important figures and themes from the Cold War--the statesmen John Foster Dulles and Ronald Reagan, the importance of espionage and intelligence in Cold War history, and the central elements in superpower relations, particularly the American style of foreign policy in the twentieth...
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In this provocative and insightful book, John Lewis Gaddis offers a number of thoughtful essays on the history of international relations during the last half century. Perceptively reassessing important figures and themes from the Cold War--the statesmen John Foster Dulles and Ronald Reagan, the importance of espionage and intelligence in Cold War history, and the central elements in superpower relations, particularly the American style of foreign policy in the twentieth century--Gaddis provides a sharp focus on the long history of the Cold War and sheds new light on its sudden close, as well as what might come next. And along the way, he eloquently illuminates such topics as the role of morality in American foreign policy, the relevance of nuclear weapons to the balance of power, and the objectives of containment, concluding with a consideration of the problems and forces at work in the post-Cold War world. These highly readable essays provide a fresh assessment of the forces that shaped and ended the Cold War, as well as insight into the shape of things to come.