The Cold War: A New History
by John Lewis Gaddis
List Price:
Our Price: $9.65
You Save: $7.35 (43%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $5.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: John Lewis GaddisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-12-26
ISBN: 0143038273
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of The Cold War: A New History
Book Review: "History Lite" . . . At Best
Summary: 2 Stars
I frankly find myself scratching my head reading the positive reviews after having read this book. I unfortunately agree more with Mr. Desmond's negative assessment. I can't be quite as harsh as him though and do give the book two stars.
One star is for attempting to write a book of such ambitious design, a one stop overview of the entire cold war. The second is for the fact that the author is at least a very good writer (fluid prose, vivid descriptions, etc.), but for reasons I'll explain shortly this does not mean I think he's a good historian.
There are many, many flaws in this book. First, as a history of the entire Cold War, it is 256 pages of actual text or so. To say depth is lost and superficiality is necessary to try to cover so large an event over such a long period of time in so short an amount of space would be a drastic understatement. It fails however to make up for this lack of depth by pulling out new or innovative insights by virtue of its tremendous breadth. The author clearly knows a lot of facts of the cold war, and repeats some of them, but his insights are just terrible, if not completely sophmoric. Many of his insights are along the lines of declaring that Moscow and Washington "really did think alike" because both believed thermonuclear weapons could destroy civilization if used. You could also conclude that Catholic priests and atheists think alike because both believe the sky is blue. This completely glosses over the extreme and salient differences in ideologies and paradigms with which the west and the communists saw and interpreted the world. He seems to conclude that capitalism won simply because it was hopeful (as opposed to communism's autocratic and fearful nature) and because it just so happened to be better at allocating resources, a further symptom of what seems to be a gross misunderstanding of what both systems were truly about and their fundamentally irreconcible moral / philosophical foundations. (A misunderstanding that astonishingly leads him to declare China a capitalist country after Deng Xiaoping comes to power, although this sloppy and unrealistic assessment of China is unfortunately rampant today and continues to obfuscate the true natures of capitalism and communism). He also claims that human nature actually physically changed as evidenced by the fact that mankind did not use nuclear weapons, and that it changed as a result of leaders like Harry Truman. These assertions are not only strikingly rare for a book of this nature, but seem alarmingly obtuse when offered.
The book also suffers from being very poorly organized. It is not chronological, which is fine, but neither is it theme driven, divided instead into pseudo-thematic chapters. However, with titles like "Lifeboats and Deathboats," the themes of these chapters are not only vague, but hard to actually see shining through in the content of the chapter or in any analysis of said content. As a result it's 250+ pages of randomly jumping about datapoints from the cold war that progresses chronologically only on average. The near random agglomeration of facts in each chapter seems connected to the title only through clumsily crafted analogies to pop culture references. Often these analogies came off as both forced fit and unconvincing. For example the Lifeboats and Deathboats chapter ties into a reference to the once popular book Life of Pi, but not really in any meaningful way. One gets the sense of the author just liking the book and being proud of himself for plugging it in his own, or thinking that proving to the world he read it makes him come off as smart or cultured.
Another major flaw with the book is that you are better off reading it with overview knowledge about the cold war already, and I would not recommend it to someone who lacks this knowledge - ostensibly the book's target audience. Completely lacking in organization, major themes of the Cold War, particularly Detente, usually just appear in mid stream of other thoughts as references. They are barely explained, let alone even introduced. And due to the short nature of the book are given equally short shrift, undeserving of their importance to the world we now live in.
This book is not even light history, it's history lite. No calories, no steak, not even the sizzle. If Mr. Gaddis is the pre-eminent American historian of the Cold War I weep for the state of American historians.
This book is quick and easy to read, and has some interesting information, but I can't really recommend it.
20th Century Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in 20th Century Books
Route 66: The Mother Roadby Michael Wallis
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1992-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.84
Sweet and Low: A Family Storyby Rich Cohen
Picador; Published: 2007-03-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.08
Price in other shops:
When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreamsby Bob Greene
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2008-05-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.59
Price in other shops:
Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star Stateby Randolph B. Campbell
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $155.33
The Dodgers Move Westby Neil Sullivan
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1989-06-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.93
Price in other shops:
American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bushby Kevin Phillips
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2004-09-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.95
Price in other shops:
Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnamby H. R. McMaster
Harper Perennial; Published: 1998-05-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.36
Price in other shops:
My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoirby John H. Richardson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-08-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
My Father the Spy: An Investigative Memoirby John H. Richardson
Harper; Published: 2005-08-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.59
Price in other shops:
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906by Simon Winchester
PBS; Harper; Published: 2005-10-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.48
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Dangerous Nation: America's Foreign Policy from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Vintage)by Robert Kagan
Vintage; Published: 2007-11-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novelby Steven C. Weisenburger
University of Georgia Press; Published: 2006-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.50
Price in other shops:
Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)by Thomas Pynchon
Penguin Classics; Published: 2006-10-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.35
Price in other shops:
The Dean's December (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)by Saul Bellow
Penguin Classics; Published: 1998-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
Underworld: A Novelby Don DeLillo
Scribner; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.10
Price in other shops:
The Book of Daniel: A Novelby E.L. Doctorow
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2007-07-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.45
Price in other shops:
A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (New Cold War History)by Vladislav M. Zubok
The University of North Carolina Press; Published: 2009-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.38
Price in other shops:
Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Centuryby Jeffry A. Frieden
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2007-04-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.43
Price in other shops:
Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwandaby Peter Uvin
Kumarian Press; Published: 1998-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.95
Price in other shops:
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalismby Naomi Klein
Picador; Published: 2008-06-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.50
Price in other shops: