For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War
by Melvyn P. Leffler
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Book Summary Information
Author: Melvyn P. LefflerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-02
ISBN: 0374531420
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Book Reviews of For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War
Book Review: Fair discussion of US-Soviet relations during the Cold War
Summary: 4 Stars
"For the Soul of Mankind", by Melvyn Leffler, is a major study of the Cold War's political diplomacy. As the name would lead one to think, the focus is strongly on the ideological aspects of the political decision-making, but Leffler is fairly pragmatic and pays plenty of attention to issues of military strength, strategic interventions, Third World movements, and so on. There is also a lot of concentration on the personal characteristics of the countries' respective leaders, which sometimes leads it deplorably into "Great Men" historiography.
A lot can be said against this book. Not just the above-mentioned excessively biographical approach, but for example it does not actually cover all of the Cold War; Leffler describes it as covering five pivotal "episodes" in it, but in practice this means it is an all-out political history of US-Soviet relations during the Cold War, but with the odd aspect of (relatively) excluding Nixon and Ford. It seems that if one is writing about every other postwar president and leader anyway, one could as well add those too. But that aside, there is the fact that Leffler talks a lot about the economies of the respective countries, but without ever describing these and their development in concrete details. He also pays no attention to cultural and social developments, giving the book a very narrow international relations focus. One would also have liked to read more about the role of European leaders, both East and West, in the diplomatic and ideological struggle, but perhaps that is too much to include in one book.
However, this book is nonetheless a clear advance over the Cold War and neo-Cold War style of history writing, as opposed to the likes of Gaddis. Although Leffler excessively demonizes and fulminates against Stalin in the beginning, he treats the Soviet leaders remarkably sanely and accurately for an American historian of the Cold War, at no point falling for "evil empire" style propaganda. He clearly and concisely discusses not just the restraints and problems the American Presidents were facing during negotiations, but also those of the Soviet leadership. Commendable is the way in which he acknowledges the role of important leaders that were not the head of government, like Molotov, Mikoyan, Gromyko, etc. His description of Khrushchov in particular is very good, and in my view quite correctly re-establishes his intelligence, competence, and advanced insight into the problems of the USSR. He has been much maligned because of Stalinists hating him and anti-Communists also hating him, but this is quite undeserved. Some might say that Leffler overestimates Brezhnev's competence perhaps, whom he seems to hold in relatively high regard, but he does not diminish his weaknesses.
Leffler is very well informed about the substance of the major negotiation rounds between the US and the USSR, as well as the main points of contention and the periods of major crisis in the Cold War. He dispells some still common myths yet again, such as the idea that Reagan and the SDI program 'defeated communism', that Stalin wanted to attack Western Europe, that the Soviet leadership had wanted to invade Afghanistan, and that the USSR at any time wanted nuclear war. Leffler is rightly critical of both sides, and brings important things to the fore that are often underestimated as aspects of the ideological struggle: the enormous impact of the WWII experience on the USSR, the role of religion in motivating US Presidents, the complicated relationships of Soviet leaders to Stalin even long after his death, and the way the reformist Soviet leaders like Khrushchov and Gorbachov often felt betrayed by American belligerence. That the US misunderstood the situation in the USSR as often as the USSR did in the US is clear from this work, as is the fact that both sides were equally willing to be aggressor and interventionist when they felt threatened. In the end, as Leffler points out, it was Gorbachov's visionary leadership that inadvertently ended the USSR, which is both a blessing and a curse for the future of socialism.
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