Tucker, Nancy. Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy, 1949-1950. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
Tucker, Nancy. Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy, 1949-1950. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
Tucker, Spencer C., ed. The Encyclopedia of the Cold War: A Political, Social, and Military History. 5 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007.
Covers from World War II to 1991.
Wagnleitner, Reinhold. Coca-Colanization and the Cold War: The Cultural Mission of the United States in Austria after the Second World War. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
Walker, Martin. The
Cold War: A History. New York: Henry Holt, 1994. [New York]: Owl Books, [1995]. [pb]
Fukuyama, FA 73.5, calls this book, written by The Guardian's U.S. bureau chief, a "solid and straightforward account." It covers through "the attempted Moscow coup in 1991," and the "later chapters on the post-Brezhnev years tend to be more interesting." Walker "by and large does not break new ground in terms of sources or interpretations." This will be "useful as an overview in college courses."
Surveillant 4.1 notes that the book includes chapters on "Spies in the Sky: Sputnik to U-2" and on the "Cuban Missile Crisis." The latter is "a good survey of the event." Overall, this is a "highly readable though general account of this recent period of history."
Cowley, MHQ Review, Spring 1997, prefers the paperback version of this "good and relatively brief history," because "its new 'Afterword' tones down the concluding gloom of the original."
Weiss, Gus W. "Cold War Reminiscences: Super-Computer Games." Intelligencer 13, no. 2 (Winter-Spring 2003): 57-60.
The author served at the White House during the early to mid-1970s, "contending with trade, intelligence, and technology issues, including technology transfer policy for détente."
Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Berger, I&NS 23.1 (Feb. 2008), finds that this work "makes a tremendous contribution to the reframing of our understanding of the Cold War as a contest in which the Third World was central rather than peripheral. At the same time,... he overstates the continuity between the post-1945 Cold War 'empires' of Washington and Moscow and the earlier formal colonial empires in the centuries prior to the Second World War."
Yergin, Daniel. Shattered
Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
The focus here is on the period to 1948 (Berlin blockade).
Yoder, Edwin M., Jr.
Joe Alsop's Cold War: A Study of Journalistic Influence and Intrigue.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
Brinkley, WPNWE, 8-14 May 1995, says that "Yoder's engaging and perceptive book describes Alsop in his prime, from roughly the end of World War II to the early 1960s.... [I]t makes clear why Alsop was simultaneously so respected and so reviled -- and why he perhaps deserved to be both.... Alsop gravitated toward the famous and powerful and often failed to recognize the dissenting perspectives of less elite sources....
"Alsop was not a detached figure commenting on his time but an engaged activist working to defend the world he believed in.... Yoder is appropriately skeptical of Alsop's many flaws and eccentricities.... But this is an affectionate and admiring portrait nonetheless.... Yoder conveys both his strengths and weaknesses with the clear eyes of a good reporter and the sensitivity of a true friend."
Warren, Surveillant 4.4/5, concurs in this judgment, calling Joe Alsop's Cold War "a charming book about the distinctly uncharming Joe Alsop."
Young, John W. Cold War Europe, 1945-1989: A Political History. New York: Arnold, 1991.
Zacharias, Ellis M.,
and Ladislas Farago. Behind Closed Doors: The Secret History of the Cold
War. New York: Putnam, 1950.
Wilcox: "Covert operations, subversion, propaganda."
Zubok, Vladislav M.,
and Constantine Pleshakov. Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin
to Khrushchev. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
For Legvold, FA 75.4, this book is "the most significant addition to the literature on Soviet foreign policy to have appeared since the end of the Cold War." It is "not a complete history of events but concentrates instead on the calculations of Stalin and the other principals at critical turning points." The authors' central thesis is that, beyond their "aggressive, power-seeking" side, the Soviet leaders "were also genuinely captured by the lingering revolutionary urges of the past, which the West never quite fathomed."
Good, WPNWE, 24-30 Jun. 1996, believes that "Cold War veterans could benefit from this first inside look at the personalities of the men who directed Soviet strategies."
Although Shryock, History 26.3, finds this work "thought provoking and in many respects enlightening," he also sees it as suffering "from a number of serious weaknesses, including ... a variety of inconsistencies regarding the origins of Soviet conduct and policy and excessive reliance on sources of doubtful or questionable authority." The reviewer is particularly bothered by the authors' "excessive sympathy for Soviet leaders -- including Joseph Stalin -- and for Soviet positions on Cold War issues."
Kelley, Parameters, Summer 1998, says that "this fine book presents a revealing interpretation of the struggle through Russian eyes.... Zubok and Pleshakov offer pointed, profoundly Russian insights, some of which will startle Western readers with their simplicity and cynicism.... The caliber of this work and the authors' willingness to confront their recent history so directly provide optimism for future Russian analyses of the Cold War."
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