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With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, independent states such as Kazakhstan sprang up along China's western frontier. Suddenly, Beijing was forced to confront internal challenges to its authority at its border as well as international competition for energy and authority in Central Asia. Hasan Karrar traces how China cooperated with Russia and the Central Asian republics to stabilize the region, facilitate commerce, and build an energy infrastructure to import the region's oil. While China's gradualist approach to Central Asia prioritized multilateral diplomacy, it also brought Beijing into direct competition with the United States, which views Central Asia as vital to its strategic interests.

Hasan H. Karrar is a visiting scholar at the Asian Institute, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. ... Read more

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WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

The first full account of how the Cold War arms race finally came to a close, this riveting narrative history sheds new light on the people who struggled to end this era of massive overkill, and examines the legacy of the nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that remain a threat today.
 
Drawing on memoirs, interviews in both Russia and the US, and classified documents from deep inside the Kremlin, David E. Hoffman examines the inner motives and secret decisions of each side and details the deadly stockpiles that remained unsecured as the Soviet Union collapsed. This is the fascinating story of how Reagan, Gorbachev, and a previously unheralded collection of scientists, soldiers, diplomats, and spies changed the course of history.

Customer Reviews (26)

The Dead Hand by David Hoffman
Hoffman is obviously a man incredibly experienced in Cold War history, and it shows throughout this fascinating, incredibly entertaining, and completely jarring book. Here you learn all you'd ever need to know about the secret Soviet nuclear and biological weapons war against the U.S., how it came about, the risks involved, the lives it took, and its presence in modern-day foreign policy. The writing is deep yet crisp, the research thorough but not overwhelming. A particular triumph of the book is how well it communicates the widespread fear and lack of understanding of the late 70's and early 80's, when neither side knew what the other was up to, when signals were constantly being misconstrued, and when random happenstances of fate stopped civilization from a complete nuclear holocaust. It was completely enjoyable and terrifying from beginning to end, with a none-too-reassuring final note of trepidation that the Dead Hand is still active in modern-day Russia. Hoffman is always direct and on the money. Vital reading for anyone with the slimmest interest in Cold War/Soviet/Iron Curtain modern history.

Wow!What a shocking piece of work.
David Hoffman does a wonderful job of taking the reader on an inside look back to the cold war and post-cold war world.If you thought you knew about what was going on...well...you didn't.

The Dead Hand is a sometimes frightening look at inside the Soviet Union in regards to handling of nuclear material, chemical/biological weapons development, and military procedures for responding to a possible nuclear attack.Insight into the motivations and discussions of Reagan and Gorbachev at the time of the arms talks are quite intriguing.Hoffman uses personal interviews with those involved to really bring the information to life.

Lots of information and a good read.I would recommend this to anyone and everyone with an interest in history, the cold war, or as insight into some current issues in the world today.

Richly detailed, with some frightening content
"The Dead Hand" has three main topics: a detailed history of the late Cold War, mostly starring Reagan and Gorbachev, with emphasis on the attitudes and problems within the Soviet Union. That is where Mr. Hoffman added substantial content and insight, based on his years over there and his access to sources (people and papers) not available to others or at least not yet exhaustively studied. He tries to play it reasonably straight, without political bias that would have made the book much less attractive.

The second topic is the dangerous situation once the Soviet Union fell, where radioactive materials were unguarded, and terrible results could have occurred. As one person said after risky, difficult and expensive efforts to contain the risk, we accomplished a lot, but who knows what slipped through? This situation was somewhat publicized at the time, but perhaps not to this level, and certainly at least the passage of time allows another reconsideration of what might have gone wrong.

The third is the scariest, the biological weapons research and manufacturing of large quantities of horrible agents, all kept under the strictest security. Of course, all that was illegal and "justified" by claims that of course the Americans must be doing the same thing. This thread was smartly written and may be more likely to be remembered than the "normal" history of nuclear weapons and the arms race that dominated the Cold War.

A Stunning Tour de Force
The Dead Hand should be required reading for everyone and no other book probes so deeply into the incredible insane depths of human skill and depravity as does Hoffman's study of the cold war era. Truth is far stranger than fiction.Some things I had been aware of and others which he presents are new and terrifying to even consider the plans that were implemented for assured extermination.Biological, nuclear and chemical weapons produced at a nearly unimaginable scale and deployed to ensure extermination.Talk about horror or scary--this is it.Stephen King, "Eat your heart out".Truth is terrifying and I don't know if it sets you free.The Dead Hand is a MUST read.Read it twice.

'Dead Hand' is a lively and thought-provoking read.
This book presents aspects of the Cold War that were
unknown to most of us back then. How they reflect on
and affect present-day life is told in an enthralling way.
... Read more

Product Description
In the twentieth century, illiteracy and its elimination were political issues important enough to figure in the fall of governments (as in Brazil in 1964), the building of nations (in newly independent African countries in the 1970s), and the construction of a revolutionary order (Nicaragua in 1980). This political biography of Paulo Freire (1921-97), who played a crucial role in shaping international literacy education, also presents a thoughtful examination of the volatile politics of literacy during the Cold War.

A native of Brazil's impoverished northeast, Freire developed adult literacy training techniques that involved consciousness-raising, encouraging peasants and newly urban peoples to see themselves as active citizens who could transform their own lives. Freire's work for state and national government agencies in Brazil in the early 1960s eventually aroused the suspicion of the Brazilian military, as well as of U.S. government aid programs. Political pressures led to Freire's brief imprisonment, following the military coup of 1964, and then to more than a decade and a half in exile. During this period, Freire continued his work in Chile, Nicaragua, and postindependence African countries, as well as in Geneva with the World Council of Churches and in the United States at Harvard University.

Andrew J. Kirkendall's evenhanded appraisal of Freire's pioneering life and work, which remains influential today, gives new perspectives on the history of the Cold War, the meanings of radicalism, and the evolution of the Left in Latin America. ... Read more

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In the years following World War II, the United States suffered its most severe military and diplomatic reverses in Asia while Mao Zedong laid the foundation for the emergence of China as a major economic and military world power. As a correspondent for the International News Service, the Associated Press, and later for the New York Times, Seymour Topping documented on the ground the tumultuous events during the Chinese Civil War, the French Indochina War, and the American retreat from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In this riveting narrative, Topping chronicles his extraordinary experiences covering the East-West struggle in Asia and Eastern Europe from 1946 into the 1980s, taking us beyond conventional historical accounts to provide a fresh, first-hand perspective on American triumphs and defeats during the Cold War era.

At the close of World War II, Topping--who had served as an infantry officer in the Pacific--reported for the International News Service from Beijing and Mao's Yenan stronghold before joining the Associated Press in Nanking, Chiang Kai-shek's capital. He covered the Chinese Civil War for the next three years, often interviewing Nationalist and Communist commanders in combat zones. Crossing Nationalist lines, Topping was captured by Communist guerrillas and tramped for days over battlefields to reach the People's Liberation Army as it advanced on Nanking. The sole correspondent on the battlefield during the decisive Battle of the Huai-Hai, which sealed Mao's victory, Topping later scored a world-wide exclusive as the first journalist to report the fall of the capital.

In 1950, Topping opened the Associated Press bureau in Saigon, becoming the first American correspondent in Vietnam. In 1951, John F. Kennedy, then a young congressman on a fact-finding visit to Saigon, sought out Topping for a briefing. Assignments in London and West Berlin followed, then Moscow and Hong Kong for the New York Times. During those years Topping reported on the Chinese intervention in the Korean conflict, Mao's Cultural Revolution and its preceding internal power struggle, the Chinese leader's monumental ideological split with Nikita Khrushchev, the French Indochina War, America's Vietnam War, and the genocides in Cambodia and Indonesia. He stood in the Kremlin with a vodka-tilting Khrushchev on the night the Cuban missile crisis ended and interviewed Fidel Castro in Havana on its aftermath.

Throughout this captivating chronicle, Topping also relates the story of his marriage to Audrey Ronning, a world-renowned photojournalist and writer and daughter of the Canadian ambassador to China. As the couple traveled from post to post reporting on some of the biggest stories of the century in Asia and Eastern Europe, they raised five daughters. In an epilogue, Topping cites lessons to be learned from the Asia wars which could serve as useful guides for American policymakers in dealing with present-day conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

From China to Indochina, Burma to Korea and beyond, Topping did more than report the news; he became involved in international diplomacy, enabling him to gain extraordinary insights.

In On the Front Lines of the Cold War, Topping shares these insights, providing an invaluable eyewitness account of some of the pivotal moments in modern history.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Great book, misleading title
The title of this book implies that it is a [comprehensive] history of the Cold War.It is not.While it includes brief chapters on events in Cuba and elsewhere, it is really about events in S E Asia, primarily in China from the time of the Chinese Civil War to 2009.

I was disappointed that the book did not live up to its title.That is why I didn't give it 5 stars.But otherwise, it is well written by an 'insider' and certainly worth reading.

On the Front Lines of the Cold War
On the Front Lines of the Cold War: An American Correspondent's Journal from the Chinese Civil War to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam (From Our Own Correspondent)

An amazing work.Topping served in many of the "hot spots" of the second half of the 20th century.He stories are mind-blowing.In a fictional story - but with much greater intelligence - he would be 'Forrest Gump.'

This is what I believe to be one of the great works recounting elements of the Cold War by someone who was there.

It deserves the Pulitzer Prize.

Truly on the front lines of history
You name the headline, from 1946 to 1971, and Seymour Topping was probably there. As a reporter and editor for two big wire services and then The New York Times, he trekked through China and Vietnam during their revolutions, and interviewed Castro, Bobby and John Kennedy, Zhou en-lai, and many more. He explained Vietnam to Congressman John Kennedy in 1951 and was one of the top editors at The Times who decided to publish the Pentagon Papers two decades later. He was in Moscow during the Cuban missile crisis and in Beijing during a major Maoist purge. His first child was even born in Vietnam, as he reported the fall of a key French-held city.

Thus, "On the Front Lines of the Cold War" is truly what its title proclaims: a personal as well as factual tour through living history. Mostly, Topping does what he's been trained to do - report the facts, in a wonderfully readable style. But there are also occasional bits of analysis and personal tidbits. For instance, it's clear that he is furious that one powerful right-winder accused him personally of "covering up Stalin's control of the Chinese communist purge." (During the height of the "who lost China?" debate, this sort of accusation could be dangerous.) My favorite anecdote describes how his wife, photojournalist Audrey Ronning Topping, was "munching bananas" and "tugged at my black beard" when they finally caught up with each other after a particularly harrowing excursion in Vietnam.

a brilliant chronicle ofa complex historical period
As I had so much enjoyed both THE PEKING LETTER and FATAL CROSSROADSI much looked forward to reading Mr. Toppings ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE COLD WAR. I was not disappointed. T his book reads like a novel-vivid, literary and deft in it's analyses of the complex and convoluted politics and personalities ( from Zhou Enlaithrough Fidel Castro) ofwhat is, arguably, the most seminal period of the 20th century.particularly interesting were the clandestine ramifications of OPERATION VESUVIUS in Cambodia during theVietnamwar (film-worthy and full of adventure ,secrecy and action!)This history is made more personal and even romantic by the inclusion of Mr. Topping's journeys with his photo/journalist wife, Audrey Ronning,( seen in one photograph on horseback with Kazaks in 1975 while on assignment with The New York Times and the National Geographic)It is a masterful and scholarly revelation!

An Excellent and Detailed Chronicle of a Complex Time
Having watched the coverage of the Viet Nam War as a child, Mr. Topping's fine chronicle went a long way toward clarifying and deepening my understanding of the mulitple issues, personalities and strategies involved in this seminal international drama. Anyone interested in this period of history will be rewarded and inspired by this detailed, colorful and descriptive book. ... Read more

Product Description
This latest edition of our classic text draws on analysis of new material released from archives in Moscow, Beijing, Hanoi, and other capitals of communist-bloc nations—helping to develop a truly international history of the Cold War, a complex and dynamic conflict that lasted more than forty years and continues to shape the foreign policy of the United States and other nations. Another important recent trend considered is the intensive study of the role of ideology in influencing policy on both sides of the conflict. Dr. Levering holds that the liberal internationalism espoused by leading Democrats and Republicans during World War II, plus most Americans’ profound dislike of communism and communists, contributed greatly to America’s decision to oppose postwar Soviet foreign policy. Many recent studies of the Cold War emphasize the role of Marxist-Leninist ideology in postwar Soviet and Chinese foreign policy. Although these new directions in scholarship are important, the basic emphases of the original edition remains the same—U.S. actions and public opinion and relations between the two leading actors in the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union. Enhanced as well is coverage of the two large-scale but limited wars that grew out of the conflict, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and of the most dangerous confrontation of the nuclear age thus far, the Cuban missile crisis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Cold war no more
I liked this book.If you are well read in this area, I don't think that the book is for you (especially if you are a vitriolic Howard Zhin fan or an American patriot who thinks we can do no wrong.)It is rather a general overview of the topic and ment for history students although clearly accesible to laymen.What I liked about the book is that Levering does not throw mind numbing statistics, but simply presents the phases of the cold war. There was a heavier emphasis on the beginning phases, and I would have like to have seen more written on the latter stages. Good intro though ... Read more

Product Description
Focusing on the two tumultuous decades framed by Indian independence in 1947 and the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965,explores the evolution of American policy toward the subcontinent. McMahon analyzes the motivations behind America's pursuit of Pakistan and India as strategic Cold War prizes. He also examines the profound consequences -for U.S. regional and global foreign policy and for South Asian stability -of America's complex political, military, and economic commitments on the subcontinent.McMahon argues that the Pakistani-American alliance, consummated in 1954, was a monumental strategic blunder. Secured primarily to bolster the defense perimeter in the Middle East, the alliance increased Indo-Pakistani hostility, undermined regional stability, and led India to seek closer ties with the Soviet Union. Through his examination of the volatile region across four presidencies, McMahon reveals the American strategic vision to have been "surprinsgly ill defined, inconsistent, and even contradictory" because of its exaggerated anxiety about the Soviet threat and America's failure to incorporate the interests and concerns of developing nations into foreign policy.addresses fundamental questions about the global reach of postwar American foreign policy. Why, McMahon asks, did areas possessing few of the essential prerequisites of economic-military power become objects of intense concern for the United States? How did the national security interests of the United States become so expansive that they extended far beyond the industrial core nations of Western Europe and East Asia to embrace nations on the Third World periphery? And what combination of economic, political, and ideological variables best explain the motives that led the United States to seek friends and allies in virtually every corner of the planet? McMahon's lucid analysis of Indo-Pakistani-Americna relations powerfully reveals how U.S. policy was driven, as he puts it, "by a series of amorphous -and largely illusory -military, strategic, and psychological fears" about American vulnerability that not only wasted American resources but also plunged South Asia into the vortex of the Cold War. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

The Limits of Power
A superb book, indeed. McMahon musters the research necessary to demonstrate the shortsighted and even foolish choices of all concerned parties in South Asia's post-independence history. If politics may be defined as the art of the possible, as it so often is, we may ask today whether the South Asian outcomes generated by the United States, the Soviet Union, Pakistan and India were in any way necessary. Could this history have been different? Yes! India and Pakistan could have settled their differences over Kashmir. The United States could have abstained from giving Pakistan military aid that hindered its economic and political development while enabling it to avoid pursing a political solution to its political problems, especially those in Kashmir and East Pakistan. India could have gained more aid than it did from the United States while retaining its neutralist position if it had avoided the ritualistic use of self-righteous and inflammatory rhetoric vis-à-vis the United States. It too could have settled the Kashmir question, but it was far too stubborn for that. After reading McMahon's book, I could only conclude that the relevant actors were too blinded by ambition, power and fear to grasp the human reality of the situation. What was needed was state building and statecraft that would enable India and Pakistan to feed its people, to resolve their political differences and to create a political community in the region that would work to ensure the dignity and freedom of the many peoples and nations residing there. We are awaiting these outcomes still.

For those individuals concerned with South Asian politics, this book is a must read.

I wish i could have given it Zero Stars
Extremely biased book. The lesson learnt: Never write a book about two countries and take one country's side. The book to me was worthless.... The first few pages were more than enough crap for me to read.

Good Research, Bad Reasoning
Good in research. Bad in reasoning. This is about the best I could come up with after reading the book. The author does an excellent job of researching the background, but ultimately falls in the samePakistan-is-a-stepchild-of-India pitfall. Pakistan and India arefundamentally two different nations. Racially and culturally, thePakistanis are the inheritors of Arab-Turkic-Persian-Mogul rulers of Indiawho ruled the region for a thousand years, until 1857 when the last oftheir rulers was overthrown by the British Empire.When, in 1947, Indiagained independence, it also marked the fact that it was the first time ina 1,000 years the Indians were ruling themselves. Racially, the people ofPakistan IN THE MAJORITY come from Arab, Aryan, Turkic, and Persianbackgrounds. But Pakistanis also have a considerable proportion of thepopulation descending from earlier Indian converts to Islam. In fact,Pakistanis even do not have anything in common with the people of formerEast Pakistan, or today's Bangladesh, with the exception of Islam, ofcourse.Pakistanis, in effect, even do no belong to South Asia, but to theMiddle East. As a young nation in 1947, Pakistani leaders were too occupiedwith the task of nation building that they overlooked the setting of thenation's cultural compass. But the awareness has increased in later years.This is the Pakistan most academicians mistake for India's stepchild.

This is a well written Book, but the author is biased!
The conflict in Southeast Asia is strictly regional, and has nothing to do with the "World Politics". The area that is now Pakistan used to be a part of the Ancient Persian Empire. The Pakistanis living in NorthernPunjab, NWFP and Balochistan e.g. Pashtoons, Balochs, Farsi speakers, etc.,have never regarded themselves as 'Indian', though they may have been"unwilling subjects" of the Crown Colony of "BRITISH INDIA".TheIndian Bias towards the Soviet Union is also understandable, i.e. Poverty& social injustice (the Hindu cast system), the rivalry between TheNORTH and the SOUTH, etc., etc. So, my view is that the Pakistan-IndiaIssue is one of extremely complex proportions. The Author (though he isgood at academic discussions and copybook analytical techniques) fails toidentify the Crux of the matter. If Pakistani's are Wrongful, then theIndians are no Saints either. People are driven more by their biases thanby anything else (at least in our times), I truly believe that this willchange in future (The Author should know that, since, he lives in the"AMERICAN SOUTH"). *** "MOST OF THE REVIEWS ON BOOKS DEALING WITH POLITICALISSUES ARE EXTREMELY BIASED." ---Anonymous

Provides an indepth understanding of US policy towards India
This book provides a detailed account of what continues to drive US policy towards India and Pakistan.It provides straight answers to the question most lay Americans have about India's tilt towards the Soviet Union and whythe US continues to prop up the fundamentalist, dictatorial and terroristnation of Pakistan. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Hotels as Armaments
The weapons that won the Cold War include ICBMs and nuclear bombs flown on B-52s.These were threats, but never had to be deployed into action.But one weapon that did go into action was hotels.Hilton hotels.This is the surprising demonstration in _Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture_ (University of Chicago Press) by Annabel Jane Wharton.What is even more surprising is that Hilton hotels did not just participate in the capitalist boom that eventually dislodged the Soviet Union.They were deliberately placed, designed, and run to make a profit, to be sure, but also to dislodge the Red Threat.This is not just the author's speculation.Conrad Hilton made it explicit:"Let me say right here, that we operate hotels abroad for the same reason we operate them in this country - to make money for our stockholders... However, we feel that if we really believe in what we are all saying about liberty, about Communism, about happiness, that we, as a nation, must exercise our great strength and power for good against evil.If we really believe this, it is up to each of us, our organizations and our industries, to contribute to this objective with all the resources at our command."He was careful not to disparage our country's military, but said, "I will tell you frankly, satellites and H-bombs will not get the job done."

Wharton has done an excellent job of giving a broad history of the overseas Hilton, while giving case studies of specific ones.The Istanbul Hilton, for instance, had all the usual amenities, like lawns (completely foreign to the area), tennis courts, and a swimming pool.It had the extraordinary feature, common in foreign Hiltons, of iced water piped into every room.However, the marquee covering cars that drove up to the entrance was a wavy horizontal structure that was referred to as the "flying carpet."The interior lobby had a series of domes in the ceiling, a bow to mosque designs, and there were teakwood screens and Turkish carpets.Work by local artisans decorated the public spaces.Nonetheless, you can see in the pictures (and in this book, there are many useful ones) that the Istanbul Hilton is still a concrete, metal, and glass box like nothing else around it.Old hotels concentrated on public rooms inside; the Hiltons looked out, with lots of glass in every room to supply a view.The view was carefully chosen.In Istanbul, it faced East, toward the Soviet Union, daring those Commies to look American modernity and wealth in the eyes.

Wharton is a historian of medieval art.Her family used some of these hotels when she was growing up, and she has returned to them to give an architectural history of the Hilton overseas effort.(She could not visit two Hiltons now lost, the one in Havana and the one in Tehran.)It is a remarkable history, no longer active because the Cold War is over, and because others followed Hiltons into the modernism market.The Hilton hotels still exist, but they are just hotels now, not unique as architecture nor as Cold War armaments.They shaped the way American visitors viewed foreign capitals, and boosted American economic (and therefore political) policies.Conrad Hilton may not have won the Cold War, but he did more than plenty of the generals.

Conrad and Communism
Annabel Wharton has written a stunning and brilliant book about the US, Europe and the Middle East during the 1950s and 1960s, the height of the Cold War.She tells the story of how Conrad Hilton and his hotel empire participated in the rebuilding of Western Europe and key spots in the Middle East in the wake of WWII by establishing the Hilton International hotels--architectural monuments to modernism--as "little Americas" away from home for US businessmen, tourists, and diplomats.She explores Hilton hotels in London, Berlin, Istanbul. Rome, Cairo , Athens and other locales.Wharton is a smart, witty writer, and this book is a great pleasure to read. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

PROBABLY THE BEST BOOK ABOUTTHE COLD WAR!!!!
Gordon Barrass has written a superb book about the Cold War.Usually, I praise or dismiss a book only at the end of my reviews.However here I must make an exception.
Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain,many books and monographs were published on this topic.What helped the authors was the immense declasification process of tens of thousands of documents that were hitherto secret.This process is still going on and there will be-I ammore than confident-more secrets coming out in the near future regarding this fascinating and frightening slice of human history.
So makes Mr.Barrass's book such a brilliant and extremely informative one?
First,the fact that he was one of those who have taken part in the decision-making process in the Cabinet Ofice in London.Add the fact that he also served as a member of the Joint Intelligence Comittee of the same Cabinet.In his capacity as an "insider", he had access to various and unseen original materials.
Second, he managed to interview around one hundred people in connection with this book.Many of them were policy makers,strategists,military commanders and ex-spies as well as other important figures in the intelligence services.
Third, he manages to blend exceptionally well oral history with documents he had examined before.
Fourth,his language is vivid,clear,eloquent,dynamic,colourful ,passionate and he offers the reader with a variety of examples giving many perpectives on each topic discussed and scrutinized in the book.
Basically, there are three main wh-questions he asks: Why did the Cold War start? Why did it last so long? Why did it end the way it did?
To answer them,he talked to important figures in the East and in the West.
According to his thesis,the Cold War was much more dangerous than we had imagined before.In his view, the roots of this conflict are to be found in a very early period in the history of both sides,going back even to the 18th century.
Mr.Barrass is very good at offering the reader the chance to understand the background of each episode of this short but frightening era of contemporary history by examining the policy-taking and making of both sides.There are chapters on the Korean War;the Cuban Missile Crisis:the Berlin Wall;Vietnam:the China-American relations and Nixon:the role of religion played in Poland;the policy of Reagan:and the relations between the Soviet Union and its satellites during the eighties, especially those with East Germany.
The author's analysis of the atomic missile role in the conflict is tremendously informative and illuminating.His account about the rise and demise of the Detente is excellent and rich with minor details offering us more than a glimpse about the way the world was suffering daily from the possibility of self-destruction.
But there is one more point which distinguishes this book from the others:his emphasis on the importance of intelligence in the Cold War.
Traditional historians have dismissed this dimension of history as irrelevant and as one belonging to sensation-seekers or quacks.Not so anymore.After the opening of the archives in the East and the West noserious historian can afford to ignore anymore this angle of history.The Cod War was in many ways a war of shadows.
Did intelligence(espionage,spies) matter? Of course.Has intelligence played a significant part in the Cold War? Definitely.We are informed that for Moscow and Washington intelligence and sound, broad assessments contributed to a peaceful ending of the Cold War.
The author interviewed a number of figures who had their share in the Great Game,such as Markus Wolf(STASI) and Milt Bearden(CIA).However, the main contribution of the intelligence role was that it offered-to a great extent-the Americans and the Soviets with a deeper insight about what was going on in the minds of the adversary.Intelligence was the key factor in this.Tranparency of what was regarded -or was supposed to be- secret helped resolve the conflict.
This book should be read by everyone who is interested in the Cold War.It is a book for the specialist and non-specialist alike and will be the best reference study of this topic for many years to come.It does provide us with some lessons to be learnt if we want to avert another self-destructive process.
In short,five stars for Mr.Barras's masterpiece.

Stellar Acomplishment
Masterful synthesis of the latest accounts, memoirs and archival discoveries; contains many revelations as to motives behind well-known events.Excellent on Soviet intentions but also realistic as to extent of their military power at the time of each activity. ... Read more

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Communism was never a popular ideology in America, but the vehemence of American anticommunism varied from passive disdain in the 1920s to fervent hostility in the early years of the Cold War.Nothing so stimulated the white hot anticommunism of the late 1940s and 1950s more than a series of spy trials that revealed that American Communists had co-operated with Soviet espionage against the United States and had assisted in stealing the technical secrets of the atomic bomb as well as penetrating the U.S. State Department, the Treasury Department, and the White House itself. This book reviews the major spy cases of the early Cold War (Hiss-Chambers, Rosenberg, Bentley, Gouzenko, Coplon, Amerasia and others) and the often-frustrating clashes between the exacting rules of the American criminal justice system and the requirements of effective counter-espionage. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Early Cold War Spies: The Espionage Trials that Shaped American Politics (Cambridge Essential Histories)
I bought this book for my father, and he loved it. It took him less than a week to finish. If you or a relative are a history buff, I strongly suggest buying this book. Also, they shipped it ASAP, which was wonderful!

Finally, the truth about Soviet espionage in America
Read this for graduate American history course.John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have collaborated and written the definitive book on six of America's espionage trials of the early Cold War era.The historical authority that this book enjoys is due not only to the use of trial transcripts and to primary and secondary sources, but its real authority comes from three sources that have been unavailable to scholars in some instances for over forty years.To draw an accurate picture of the magnitude of espionage conducted in the United States at the behest of the Soviet Union, the authors have used FBI files on the subject which were only made available in the 1980's.In addition, in 1995 the U.S. government made public about 3,000 decoded messages that were sent between Soviet consulates in the U.S. and Moscow from 1943 to 1946.These were messages that U.S. code breakers deciphered under a project named "Venona."Finally, the authors were able to corroborate much of their information from Soviet intelligence officers who defected and gave information to intelligence services in the West, as well as KGB archives that were made available after the collapse of the Soviet Union.All of this information was used by the authors to write, in a very entertaining style, an accurate account of six espionage trials and how they affected American politics for decades.

Besides the factual accounts of the six espionage trials and information on the unlawful activity of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), in this book the authors illuminated another important lesson, especially for historians.By writing about the conduct, outcome, and historical interpretation of the espionage trials and the "red scare" that swept across the U.S. at the start of the Cold War, the authors astutely showed how historical interpretation of the subject had come full circle in fifty years.Newspaper headlines were replete with reports of Communist spies being ferreted out of government agencies in the late 1940's and early 1950's.Many Americans were riveted by and fearful of two of the more famous cases--the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg atomic spy trial and the Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers State Department spy case.Both cases engendered strong reactions from both conservatives who supported the government against the Rosenbergs and supported Chambers against Hiss, and liberals who saw overzealous prosecution by the government especially against Ethel Rosenberg and Hiss.Even after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed and Hiss was found guilty, public opinion seemed to stay the same until after the Watergate era; a time in which many Americans perceived abuses of power by the American government and doubted the veracity of both the FBI and CIA.In the case of Alger Hiss, he was winning the public's opinion by this time mainly because Richard Nixon, who was instrumental in attacking Hiss in congressional hearings, was discredited by his role in the Watergate cover up and his eventual resignation from the presidency.However, the authors showed how inside of fifty years public opinion came full circle back to recognizing that the Rosenbergs and Hiss were truly Communists who spied on behalf of the Soviets, through the release of the "Venona" messages and information from Soviet intelligence archives released in the 1990's.

Another relevant point that the authors made in their book was in reference to the conduct of the CPUSA.Many Americans came to believe that the CPUSA should have been banned in the U.S. after Senator McCarthy spearheaded the congressional hearings against Americans who were sympathetic to Communism.Although Senator McCarthy would ultimately be accused of conducting a witch-hunt, especially against people in the film industry, the authors prove with the "Venona" messages and Soviet archival documentation that the CPUSA was working at the behest of the Soviet government.The authors conclude their book with an admonition about the CPUSA."In the late 1940's and early 1950's, the internal threat posed by the American Communist Party, both as a subversive political force and an auxiliary to Soviet espionage, loomed large" (239).Thus, if it were not proper under the constitution to ban the CPUSA, at a minimum, it should have been required to register as an agent of a foreign government.

Another prescient point that the authors made, which is relevant to the current war against terrorism today, was the extraordinary burden the government was under to protect its intelligence-gathering sources while prosecuting espionage cases.Although the government had clear evidence from the "Venona" messages, and illegal FBI wiretap operations that hundreds of Americans were engaged in espionage against the U. S., it was not at liberty to bring most of these traitors to trial.The government was unwilling to divulge the "Venona" source in court, which it would have had to do under the laws at that time to bring others to trial.In addition, illegal wiretaps would obviously be inadmissible in court.The government had to be satisfied that they would be able to interview these people, and if they did not cooperate with the government, they would at least lose their security clearances, resulting in the loss of their government jobs.The authors drew another parallel between the early Cold War era and the conduct of the war against terrorism today.The early Cold War spies were motivated by ideology and not money, just like today's terrorists.They were true believers in the Communist ideology, which is a major reason why so many were unwilling to cooperate with the government by turning over the names of other people they knew were spying for the Soviets in the U.S.Their ideological beliefs made them more dangerous because they were willing to have their lives ruined and go to their graves rather than divulge information.Thus, for all of the aforementioned reasons, Haynes and Klehr's book is a valuable keystone to anyone trying to understand the early Cold War era.

As a graduate student in philosophy and history, I recommended this book for anyone interested in American history, foreign policy, Cold War history.

Yes, Virginia, there really were hundreds of Communist spies
This reference work belongs on your bookshelf. Short and factual while heavily documented, in effect a college-level history primer, it recounts and places in context the major espionage trials of the 1940s and 1950s.

It is now estimated there were several hundred Soviet spies in the United States, pilfering government, industrial or military secrets, and occasionally rising high enough in government to influence policy.

Few were successfully prosecuted because counterespionage needs often worked at cross purposes with criminal trials' public disclosure. Cases often hinged on evidence gained from bugs and wiretaps placed without court order, which the FBI could do, and which served counterspy investigations, but which could not be introduced into court. The relatively few convictions have allowed the left to claim over the years that it was all a drummed-up scare over a non-existent problem. This book conclusively proves otherwise.

The authors put these cases - Elizabeth Bentley, Hiss-Chambers, the Rosenbergs and numerous others - into historical and sequential context, including the shifting politics of wartime and postwar and changing criminal laws in areas like wiretapping. They also apply the conclusive evidence emerging publicly only decades later when records were declassified here and abroad.

The authors' fairness is exemplified by their treatment of Manhattan Project research director J. Robert Oppenheimer. Wiretaps showed he wasn't guilty of spying, but aroused government security suspicions both because of his close Communist associations - including his wife and brother - as well as his reticence to investigators once Soviet spying attempts came to light. His shifting stories over the years (mostly to protect his brother, Manhattan Project leader General Leslie Groves concluded) led many to doubt his judgment and suitability, while not necessarily his loyalty.

They also do a great job reconstituting the "Who Lost China?" debate. American Communists in the Treasury Department planted a Chinese Communist agent in Chiang's government, who managed to delay gold transfers to Chiang's government for two or three years. Chinese currency became worthless and public opinion tilted to Mao.

Haynes and Klehr conclude that the problem ended by the 1960s, for various reasons, with the decline of the ideologically motivated spy. Latter-day traitors like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanson did it for money. But the earlier period should be one of great concern for those today who maintain that their opposition to U.S. interests and support for those of foreign enemies should in no way generate questions about their loyalty. Because in the 1930s and 1940s, left ranks were pervaded by traitors. Liberals need to get over their continuing denial.

History of the Trials, and Subsequent Revelations
During World War II and in the years afterward Stalin and the Soviet Union maintained a very active spy network in both the United States and England. During this time the intellectual liberals in the United States became convinced that the United States Government was on a witch hunt to railroad a series of people into jail.

Perhaps the most famous of these was the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were convicted of espionage and subsequently executed. There have been a number of books published that claim the Government falsified the evidence against them and that they were innocent. Then in the 1990's, the Venona project was declassified and clearly showed that they were indeed spies. Since then the media has been very quiet on the subject.

This book looks at a number of these early trials, discusses what happened and then relates what more recent sources like Venona and the opening of the KGB archives says about the cases.

In spite of this evidence, there are still those who maintain that these people were innocent, see for instance the book 'Secret Judgment: How the U.S. Government Illegally Executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.' ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

A must for people unfamiliar with the subject
For those just getting into history this is a MUST.History books seem to change a little with every generation and this is no exception.In this series you will see a change in format which is much more attention getting and much more readable.People tend to shy away from history these days but this series is the cure.
Some people complain of historical inaccuracies in this book, but let me assure you that (although some minor ones may exist) they are trivial.If you are unfamiliar with the subject you need to read this book.If you are thinking about getting interested about history read this book. If you thought history classes were boring but are deciding to give it another shot READ THIS BOOK!In fact read the whole real history of series.

Entartaining but inaccurate
I am done with about a third of the book and not sure when I'll finish it so I'll write a review now. It is definitely very interesting reading especially for somebody like me, not closely familiar with American history. However, it is full of mistakes in the parts I know about (namely, Soviet history) and so I am not sure how reliable is the information on the American part of the picture. For example, Hitler and Stalin did not invade Poland "simultaneously". Stalin promised it to Hitler but than declared the army not ready and finally crossed the border exactly two weeks later claiming to the whole world his only reason for doing so was "protection" and "liberation" of brother Ukraininan and Belarus people. USSR did not "annex" Finland - more than this, decimated and crippled, Finland was able to mount a crushing offensive on the Soviet North two years later, reclaim (temporarily) all the lost territory and much beyond this. Details on the WWII on the Russia territory are also sloppy, even though it really doesn't matter for the main subject of the book. There were several similar ridiculous small mistakes, not very significant for the general line of the narrative, but annoying. Indeed, all this information is available in the school books. I guess a professional historian would notice many more errors than I did. The reason the Soviets did not detonate a 100 megaton H-bomb is claimed to be the fear for the safety of the aircraft crew. I doubt it and have heard of a completely different and much more serious reasons. Anyway, as a basic reading about this period it is a good book, reading easily, illustrated, with sidenotes. I wouldn't buy it again but enjoy reading it as a sketch, as an urban legends collection about an unfamiliar subject. As to the reported left bias - I didn't come to this part yet but the author would have hard time convincing me that communists shouldn't be fought by almost any available means. 22 years of Soviet upbringing, 2 years in Soviet army - I've had enough of it, thank you :-).

Entertaining, but errors galore and history from a liberal revisionist slant
First off I have to say this book was entertaining.However in many cases it was hard to read through all of the typos, grammatical and other mistakes that just should not be in a book one pays over $20 for.It really goes a long way to make one wonder, if the author and publisher did not take the time to proof the little things, how accurate was the data?There are typos and grammar errors at least every other page.Is very annoying.Not small errors, but huge errors.

Next, the author, though ever so slight takes a very definite slant towards a liberal/progressive revisionist view in history.While in one breath the author does a great job in explaining why there was certain types of hysteria during the cold war, thus justifying certain actions, in the end most of his conclusions he presents is that if one was Conservative or anti-communist, then that person was wrong.Again, beating down McCarthy was a common theme in the book, when we now know in many cases McCarthy was right no matter how modern liberal media wants to ignore the actual threats he pointed out.Propping up the Soviets, Chinese, and other on the left is a common theme in this book.On a good note, at least he did properly beat down Stalin.

But besides my negative comments, it is an entertaining book.Just with the errors and the definite viewpoint the author wants to push, one must wonder the accuracy of the data and story being presented.

Buy the book, but make sure to buy it when it is used and under $10.As for paying the $20+ new price for something so full of errors, not worth it.

To the author, not sure if this is your first book, but don't publish something with so many typos and errors.It really brings down your credibility and one wonders why you spent so much time researching and writing a book, only to do a half arsed job in the editing and final publishing.Hire a good old fashioned editor to proof this final product, and learn.You may find a lot of red on the page after he/she gets done proofing this, but it will go a long way towards your next work.I enjoyed the book, would buy it again, but man....how can you release an unfinished book, that has not been edited?You should get your money back from whomever proofed this book for you, if anyone did at all. ... Read more

Product Description
Dino A. Brugioni, author of the best-selling account of the Cuban Missile crisis, Eyeball to Eyeball, draws on his long CIA career as one of the world's premier experts on aerial reconnaissance to provide the inside story of President Dwight D. Eisenhower s efforts to use spy planes and satellites to gather intelligence. He reveals Eisenhower to be a hands-on president who, contrary to popular belief, took an active role in assuring that the latest technology was used to gather aerial intelligence. This previously untold story of the secret Cold War program makes full use of the author s firsthand knowledge of the program and of information he gained from interviews with important participants. As a founder and senior officer of the CIA s National Photographic Interpretation Center, Brugioni was a key player in keeping Eisenhower informed of developments, and he sheds new light on the president s contributions toward building an effective and technologically advanced intelligence organization. The book provides details of the president s backing of the U-2 s development and its use to dispel the bomber gap and to provide data on Soviet missile and nuclear efforts and to deal with crises in the Suez, Lebanon, Chinese Off Shore Islands, Tibet, Indonesia, East Germany, and elsewhere. Brugioni offers new information about Eisenhower s order of U-2 flights over Malta, Cyprus, Toulon, and Israel and subsequent warnings to the British, French, and Israelis that the U.S. would not support an invasion of Egypt. He notes that the president also backed the development of the CORONA photographic satellite, which eventually proved the missile gap with the Soviet Union didn't exist, and a variety of other satellite systems that detected and monitored problems around the world. The unsung reconnaissance roles played by Jimmy Doolittle and Edwin Land are also highlighted in this revealing study of Cold War espionage. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Insiders perspective on how aerial reconnaissance shaped world politics
"Eyes in the Sky: Eisenhower, the CIA, and Cold War Aerial Espionage," by Dino Brugioni, is the story of the evolution of aerial reconnaissance.Brugioni worked as a manager within the CIA for many years, so he speaks with authority on the amazing capabilities that managed to peek over the Iron Curtain.

Military commanders have always sought the "high ground" to be able to sense how their adversary deployed their forces in combat.As aviation evolved, so did military experiments with aerial photography.Brugioni provides the reader with a quick primer on both the military and civil application of aerial photography through the mid 20th century.Among the staff officers exposed to the maturation of this nascent technology was a military officer by the name of Dwight Eisenhower.

As Eisenhower assumed the oval office, he viewed the Soviet Union as the most likely adversary.The United States felt a great urgency to learn what was going on inside the Soviet Union, but in the 1950s these maps simply did not exist.Eisenhower then began some of the most ambitious aerial reconnaissance programs that would test the limits of American ingenuity.These programs would require new optics, new cameras, new film, and new aerial platforms - and the price of failure could have resulted in nuclear war.Brugioni examines various balloon programs and as expected, dedicated entire chapters to Kelly Johnson's visionary U-2, A-12, & SR-71 aircraft, and the world's first reconnaissance satellite, CORONA.

Paul Harvey would be proud of the way Brugioni provides the reader with the "Rest of the Story".He fully explains to the reader how these new technologies resolved emerging crises - U-2 flights and the Cuban Missile Crisis; debunking the myth of the "Bomber Gap" and the "Missile Gap" between the Soviet Union and the US; Belgians in the Congo; and the Suez Crisis.US aerial intelligence proved the deciding factor in these and many more situations.

The book is a fascinating look at the impact of aerial intelligence on the politics of the late 20th century.Dino Brugioni was there for many years - he knew the personalities and saw the evolution of the technology.The book is well researched and footnoted, yet still very readable.I highly recommend this book for the reader wanting to learn more about this fascinating subject.

Quite detailed yet not tedious
I must categorically state that this book belongs on the bookshelf of any early cold war historian. The book gives a historical backdrop of the tensions between The US and the USSR. At the time we had a total dearth of information about the capabilities of the Russians. We,and especially Eisehower was laboring under the fear of another Pearl Harbor. Thus our intelligence agencies had to somehow find out about any possibly agressive moves by our adversary. After reading this book, one might conclude that our U-2 spy flights relieved tensions rather than ratcheted them up with provocative overflights of Russian air space. Our motives were clear. The Russians could easily learn our national mood and intentions by merely reading a newspaper. On the other hand, Russia being a closed society, was a total cypher to us. This book relates what it is like to have a strong president in the white house as opposed to some of the more timid ones of later years and currently. An intersting comparison can be made between the Russians under Krushchev and Saddam. The Russains were full of bombast and very greatly exaggerated their capabilities. The U-2 flights gave the lie to such bluster and had the effect of greatly reducing our own fears. Saddam, like Krushchev, was full of bombast and bluster. But we had no means to find the real truth, thus an invasion that may not have been necessary.

An Invaluable Contribution to the Story of Cold War Aerial Reconnaissance
There's no shortage of books about the Lockheed U-2. A couple of recent ones worth reading are "Spyplane: The U-2 History," by Norman Polmar, and "The U-2 Spyplane: Toward the Unknown: A New History of the Early Years," by Chris Pocock. Both of these concentrate on the development, technology and operations of the aircraft itself. "Eyes in the Sky" tells a different story. As such, is a very useful adjunct to the many U-2 books already on the market.

Mr. Brugioni was deeply involved in collecting, interpreting and exploiting overhead imagery in World War II and during the Cold War. He was a hands-on participant in the analyses of U-2 imagery that helped to dispel U.S. fears of a "bomber gap" and a "missile gap." "Eyes in the Sky" offers his unique perspective on the Eisenhower presidency, a time when the capabilities and importance of aircraft and satellite reconnaissance surged to unprecedented proportions. As the first aircraft purpose-built for photography from altitudes that (at least temporarily) rendered it immune to Soviet air defenses, the U-2 was a technological masterpiece. But that's not Mr. Brugioni's focus. His story (and a fascinating one it is) takes place largely on the light tables of the skilled imagery analysts who tirelessly scrutinized overhead photographs to extract every last morsel of intelligence value from them. His story often features the "briefing boards" that these analysts prepared for high-ranking officials and decision-makers, including the President, and on what the crystal-clear images implied to national security. As far as I know, this story has not been told in detail before. Mr. Brugioni thus adds an essential element of understanding to the history of Cold War aerial espionage.

"Eyes in the Sky" covers only the Eisenhower years. It ends at the cusp of the 1960s, after the U-2 had become obsolescent because of its vulnerability to Soviet surface-to-air missiles, but before the Corona photo-reconnaissance satellite system had become fully operational. Within that timeframe, though, this book gives as good a picture as you're likely to find of what went on "behind the scenes" at the highest levels of Government during the tumultuous 1950s.

As good as it is, "Eyes in the Sky" still has some minor but annoying errors that don't affect the accuracy or quality of its narrative, but do indicate that a competent editor should have made a final, thorough proofreading pass over the manuscript. For example, the spellings of some names are different, often in the same paragraph or within a few pages of each other. The Soviet airfield "Mys Schmidta" (an early U-2 target, and also the subject of the first successful Corona denied-area image) also appears as "Mys Schnidta." China's nuclear weapons test site is both "Lop Nor" and "Lop Nur." The name of a CIA official is variously "Sheldon" and "Shelton." The Canberra's engines were Rolls Royce "Avons," not "Avions," and "Midas" stood for "Missile Defense Alarm System," not "Missile Alarm Defense System." These errors aren't major, of course, but there are pretty many of them, and they should not be there. Perhaps Mr. Brugioni will fix them in a later edition.

"Eyes in the Sky" is still a great book, and less anal-retentive readers will probably not even notice these little faults. Mr. Brugioni's work deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the Cold War, the intelligence community, the Eisenhower presidency or the early evolution of American aerial and satellite reconnaissance. I recommend it very highly.

Stories from an Imagery Domain Expert
First lets start with the good stuff - if you're interested in military and intelligence history of the Cold War this book should be on your shelf.The CIA, NSA and NRO employed imagination, creativity and daring in building a series of imagery, elint, telint and other systems that eventually became our National Means of Technical Verification. This allowed us to peer into the closed society of what was the Soviet Union and more than likely was one of the reasons why World War III never happened.The author, who was there at the creation of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) and had the first eyeballs on the U-2 and Corona imagery and is the true definition of an imagery domain expert.

The bad news is that domain which is the subject of this book- Eisenhower, the CIA and the Cold War - appears to be above his pay grade.The book rambles between timelines in the mid-1950's and fast forwards at random times a decade or two into the future and then jumps back to the Eisenhower administration. (It would have been a much more interesting book if he hadn't tried to constrain himself to the Eisenhower story and focused more on the evolution of overhead imagery story.) Given the author was briefing Eisenhower it's frustrating to finish the book still trying to figure out whether his role was as a junior "spear-carrier" or a decision maker. I happen to believe that the available historical data supports the authors basic claims about Eisenhower's Cold War imagery policy and strategy. But the book was so poorly edited that I couldn't tell whether his statements about the subject were speculation, opinion or first hand observation.

The book shines when the author sticks to the subject he knows best, imagery and interpretation.The stories are bright, insightful and revealing.

The Cold War from Above
The Cold War was in many ways a war of shadows,where intelligence and espionage played a very important part in this ideological conflict between the superpowers.The United States lacked serious human assets who could have supplied intelligence to the policy-makers.It was this defficiency which led to the development of Sigint and its allies.One of these was aerial intelligence.
According to Dino Brugioni's new book,President Eisenhower made more than extensive use of intelligence in order to find out as much as possible about the intentions and capabilities of America's adversaries.Brugioni served as a senior analyst in the CIA and was involved in many classified projects.He has written a very important and fascinating tale about how Eisenhower was a hands-on president who took a very active part in making sure that the latest technology was harnessed to gather aerial intelligence.Because Brugioni was a founder and a senior officer of the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center,he was one of the few who had immediate access to the president and as an insider,he provides us with a superb story about the development and use of aerial intelligence during the fifties of the previous century.Many key leaders "of our country were far from convinced that acquiring photographs from balloons,airships,aircraft,or satellites was worth the cost in dollars and lives.Eisenhower had to deal with these attitudes as he rosethrough positions of leadership in the militay and afterward as president". The importance of imagery reconnaissance grew from Eisenhower's early years as a staff officer through WW2.As Supreme Allied commander in Europe,he knew the importance of intelligence in military decision making and did not hesitate to approve new methods of gathering intelligence- even those with risks-and he pursued them with fervor.
The first chapter of the book gives a detailed survey about the beginnings and development of photo intelligence throughout history to the end of WW2.The story then commences to describe the various sources which served the American President.Among them there were:WW2 Luftwaffe aerial photos;POW information;displaced Russians;Allied WW2 aerial photos;General Reinhard Gehlen's files and many other sources,like intelligence coming from military attaches,defectors and ex-Nazi scientists.In the early 1950s there was no coordination of military reconnaissance activities;theater commanders conducted independent activities.
The first overflight of Soviet territory took place in January 1951.Brugioni states that hundreds of crewmen were shot down while flying recoinnassance missions during the 1950s and 1960s.This this not deter Eisenhower who was determined to ensure the United Staes never again suffered another Pearl Harbor.Not everyone displayed such an enthusiasm for aerial intelligence.One of the chief opponents was General Curtis LeMay who"had a deep suspicion of the CIA and he thought scientists were interfering with his business"(p.97)Allen Dulles was a skeptic ,too, but later became an adherent of CIA aerial intelligence, especially after the U-2 was the baby of his men.The main protagonist of this project was Richard Bissell, who was a brilliant economist and had excellent abilities to coordinate and administer this mammoth and extremely costly project.The maiden flight of the U-2 was on August,4,1955 and months later,pilots were reaching 70000 feet and breaking altitude records.We get a very good description about the pilots' ordeal before, during and after their flights.
In another detailed chapter, Brugioni tells us about the missions of the U-2 during the Suez War and the Soviet invasion of Hungary,while another part of the book tells a fascinating tale abouth nine flights over the USSR whose purpose was to find out as much information about the Soviet nuclear capabilities as possible.Nuclear test centers and atomic energy compounds were photographed too and the risks were extremely high.
The 1950s were a period when the USA was more than certain that a missile gap between the two super-powers existed.However,the U-2 and many other less known secret -but declassified- projects showed clearly that this notion of a gap was a myth.
Eisenhower supported the use of aerial intelligence in the Lebanon, Tibet,Indonesia, and East Germany crises and authorized flights over Dimona in Israel and Malta.He sent Brugioni's colleagues to the European allies to demonstrate the ability of the U-2 capabilities and encouragedthe development ofthe Corona satellite project.De Gaulle and Adenauer were mostly impressed with what they had seen and the French President did not hesitate to berate Khrushchev after Gary Powers' plane was shot down.Indeed,the theory about the missile gap was again demolished after the Soviet spy Penkovsky proved-in his many papers he smuggled out of the USSR-that the Soviets were bluffing and just bragging about their real nuclear and missile capabilities.Eisenhower hid this piece of information from the future president of the USA John.F.Kennedy during his campaign against Nixon.
This is the first book to deal with this aspect of the Cold War in such a detailed,well-documented and in-depth explanation and analysis.Tens of photos are includedand at the beginning of the book Brugioni gives offers many insights into the analyst's daily job of receiving,reading and interpreting aerial photos,including the technical tools he needs in order to do this.After all Brugioni experienced everything at firsthand.
... Read more

Product Description

The Cold War dominated the world political arena for forty-five years. Focusing on the international system and on events in all parts of the globe, Melvyn P. Leffler and David S. Painter have brought together a truly international collection of articles that provide a fresh and comprehensive analysis of the origins of the Cold War.

Moving beyond earlier controversies, this edited collection focuses on the interaction between geopolitics and threat perception, technology and strategy, ideology and social reconstruction, national economic reform and patterns of international trade, and decolonization and national liberation. The editors also consider how and why the Cold War spread from Europe to Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America and how groups, classes and elites used the Cold War to further their own interests.

This second edition includes the newest research from the Communist side of the Cold War and the most recent debates on culture, race and the role of intelligence analysis. Also included is a completely new section dealing with the Cold War crises in Iran, Turkey and Greece and a guide to further reading.

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Customer Reviews (9)

Comprehensive History
I bought this for my dad, who was a SAC commander in the 60's-80's.He knew a number of the people in the book, and learned quite a bit about SAC that he didn't already know.This is perfect for SAC and air force buffs.

Dry, but I learned quite a bit...
This book is very dry reading, but it does contain some good stories.The errata sheets provided note a misspelling, but still failed to properly spell the latter word in "court martial".The plural of this term is "courts martial".A few days ago, I spoke with the IBEW Business Rep who covers most of the contract employees at Shemya.All the operating buildings are equipped with freezers, kitchens etc., since no one is allowed outdoors when the wind starts blowing the remnants of the WWII-era buildings away.A shop steward there assured me that there's still "a woman behind every tree."For the son of a KC-97 and KC-135 navigator, this was a worthy read.

Oh, how I wish for a return of SAC... and its weapons
As a member of the bits & pieces left in the wake of SAC's demise, I really do wish for a return of the Strategic Air Command. Mr. Turner's book is amazing with its list of organization charts, test programs, operational missions, and is a SAC-buff's dream.

One of the reviewer's comments mentioned that the book was lacking in "heart," meaning human stories and anecdotes about time in SAC. Yeah, the book is missing that, but as an organizational guide and "yellow pages" I wouldn't expect to find love stories or "So... there I was." I wanted the weapons and the chronologies and the patches... and that's exactly what Turner's book delivers.

Don't make LeMay rise from the grave from your ignorance of SAC... buy this book...

What a book...
This book is just awesome.Words alone can't discribe how wonderful this book is.It tells you everything about Strategic Air Command and then some.If you want to learn about the history of SAC then if i where you get this book.There are a few misprints but the book comes with a paper outlining what was misprinted other wise a kickass book.

SAC was great, and this is a great SAC book
In this monumental book, the late Al Lloyd describes seeing the TWA ramp at St. Louis IAP filled with armed B-47s dispersed there during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bits of authenticating detail like that and the astonishing amount of well researched, fascinating narrative about SAC more than makes up for the occasional continuity and editing shortcomings of this book.

This is a perfect companion to the DVD of A Gathering of Eagles, if only it existed!

If you got this far looking for a gift for a SAC vet or an Air Force history enthusiast, look no further. If SAC is your bag, A Cold War Legacy is terrific, truly a genuine tribute to SAC and a credit to Lloyd, whose books on C-119s and B-47s are also highly recommended.
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Re-telling the story of the 20th century -- truthfully
There's a story that most Americans of my and later generations have grown up with.It goes something like this: in the late 1920's our economy spontaneously dropped off a cliff due to an (unexplained) failure of capitalism and free enterprise.Although the situation was initially made worse by the laissez faire ideology of the Hoover administration, from 1933 onward FDR boldly enacted needed government policies to compensate for the inability of free markets to generate full employment and to self-correct.Thus government "demand" substituted for the absence of private "demand" and the grave situation was ameliorated through the 1930's.Then World War II arrived and provided just the Keynesian stimulus the economy really needed to come out of the Great Depression once and for all.Prosperity returned with the War, and America never looked back.

Trouble is, the story is almost entirely wrong.In this collection of essays, all written well before our current crisis-driven expansion in government power, Higgs logically and systematically explodes all of the myths and provides new insights as to how the state response to the Great Depression and Second World War permanently changed both the size and dynamics of government spending in relation to the private economy, and in particular how the larger share of GDP devoted to military spending evolved through the Cold War period.

He starts with the late 1930's and "Great Duration":the question of why the Great Depression lasted so long, much longer than any previous downturn, even ones that were substantially deeper.In fact, it is becoming increasingly accepted in the economics profession (ok, with the exception of DeLong and Krugman) that the policies of the New Deal directly served to prolong the misery.

Higgs' contribution to this debate is his focus on "regime uncertainty" as a deterrent to the private investment necessary to restore genuine prosperity.In FDR's second term, the hostility to private enterprise was turned up dramatically as compared to FDR's own policies in his first term and to his own rhetoric theretofore.Scapegoating of "economic royalists", punitive tax rates, and ongoing battles with both a friendly Congress and an (initially) less-friendly judiciary over expansions of executive power to regulate, and a pattern of ad-hoc policy zigzagging all added up to create a genuine fear for the security of private property rights.In this environment, private capitalists were made reluctant to invest because they could not be certain or even confident in their future rights to harvest the fruits of investment.America appeared headed down the road to fascism.Thus private investment both in real dollars and as a percent of GDP remained below its pre-Depression level throughout the 1930's and through the war years.

Higgs uses contemporaneous survey data to support the thesis that businessmen genuinely feared for the future of free enterprise.The turnaround in opinion seemed to come as FDR shifted his focus to mobilization for the war effort, beginning in 1940.There was a changing of the guard in the Administration away from the "economic planners" and towards the "dollar a year men" who came from private industry with the organizational capabilities to direct the large scale war effort that was approaching.This was a group that was friendlier to business and the focus on war mobilization led to a lessening of the open hostility to enterprise.This changing of the tone of the Administration, combined with a change in control in Congress in 1944 (and the fact that FDR was gone by the end of the war) set the stage for the "Great Escape", the surge of private investment and return to real prosperity that ensued almost immediately after the conclusion of the war.

The poll data provided by Higgs to demonstrate these changes in the climate of opinion are corroborated by the financial markets which began to surge as the war wound down. The regime uncertainty hypothesis is thus consistent as an explanation of both the Great Duration and the Great Escape.The conventional Keynesian explanation that the war pulled us out of the Great Depression by the sheer magnitude of government expenditures cannot explain the postwar prosperity and indeed most mainstream economists at the time were expecting a return to depression following the war.

Of course the conventional Keynesian view (and the conventional civics book storyline) also holds that the war years themselves were a time of great prosperity.The argument usually rests, rather thoughtlessly, on the simple facts of dramatically reduced unemployment and substantial growth in conventional measures of national output.But this superficial view ignores the fact that some 22% of the prewar labor force was pulled into military service in the war years, the majority by conscription.Surely this is no measure of economic well-being.In fact, non-defense employment dropped dramatically.

As far as conventional measures of economic growth, Higgs explains that the statistical data gathered in the war years are virtually worthless as measures of economic well-being.The U.S. in wartime was a command economy, subject to widespread rationing, price controls and, of course, compulsory military service.Thus the national accounts data did not conform to the underlying economic theory behind them.In a command economy, quantities and values do not measure end consumer value, prices do not represent marginal rates of substitution, etc.As anyone who actually lived through the period can attest, the war years were a time of privation, not prosperity.

Higgs shows that the error of relying on conventional measures of GDP also leads to false conclusions about the return to prosperity immediately following the war.Although real GDP conventionally measured dropped in each of 1945, 1946 (by over 20%!) and 1947, private GDP and private investment soared.In addition to the conceptual problems with output data in the war years, some 40% of total output for the period was munitions spending - subtracting such spending from postwar GDP does not seem to represent a step backwards in human well-being.As Higgs says, false boom, false bust.

And the surge in private investment helped provide employment for the dramatically increased civilian labor force.Between 1945 and 1947 the civilian labor force increased by over 6 million, while civilian unemployment increased by only 1 million.The real miracle of the transition years is how quickly the government controls over economic activity were removed, which not only had the direct benefit of allowing the private sector to respond flexibly but also the benefit to confidence that fed the investment boom - the removal of regime uncertainty.

Of course the trauma of the Great Depression and Second World War altered the size, scope and behavior of the Federal government permanently.In this volume, Higgs also shows how the model for defense contracting developed in the mobilization period directly led to the "iron triangle" and "military-industrial complex" of the postwar period, which in turn has resulted in ongoing defense spending orders of magnitude higher than any prior peacetime experience.He reviews the Cold War history of crises, shooting wars and periodic alleged preparedness "gaps" and the associated ups and downs (mostly ups) in military spending of the last 60 years.Some of the descriptions are startlingly familiar:

"In a perceived crisis, public opinion became volatile.Many people suspended their reason, critical faculties, and long-term judgment, reacting emotionally and with heightened deference to political leaders.As Senator Arthur Vandenberg observed when Truman was first attempting to persuade the public to support a policy of containment in 1947, gaining such support required that national leaders `scare hell out of the American people.'"

A little War in Iraq or Troubled Asset Relief Program, anyone?

As a parent whose children have been making their way through the history lessons taught in our secondary schools, I am painfully aware that the conventional view of America's 20th century is well-established and will be slow to give way.But factual, careful and thoughtful analysis like that of which Higgs is a master is the only way to the truth.And we all must hope that truth will prevail.

Paul McMahon
October 8, 2009

Must Read !!!
An excellent book. Must read for every one, who wants to understand major economic issues of the 20th century, as well as what is going on today, the 21st century's first Economic Depression. ... Read more

Product Description
Pedagogy of Democracy re-interprets the U.S. occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952 as a problematic instance of Cold War feminist mobilization rather than a successful democratization of Japanese women as previously argued. By combining or "using" three fields of research--occupation, Cold War, and postcolonial feminist studies--and examining occupation records and other archival sources, Koikari argues that postwar gender reform was part of the Cold War containment strategies that undermined rather than promoted women's political and economic rights. Koikari suggests that American and Japanese women leaders both participated in as well as resisted the ruling dynamics of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation. Thus, Pedagogy of Democracy sheds new light on the complex and contradictory implications of Western feminist interventions in Asia. By applying a postcolonial feminist framework to American gender reform in the Cold War Asia-Pacific context--a subject hitherto understudied among feminist scholars--Pedagogy of Democracy reveals both the similarities and the differences between imperial feminisms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ... Read more

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In ‘Spies in the Sky' Patrick Norris responds to the occasion of the 50^th Anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age – the launch of Sputnik 1 – with a review of the most important historical applications of space science for the benefit of the human race during that half century, focusing particularly on the prevention of nuclear war. The author addresses the oft quoted conclusion that the Moon landings and the ‘race to the Moon’ between the two superpowers were a side effect of the Cold War, by describing what he believes was the more important event – the use of satellites by military to prevent the Cold War becoming a ‘hot war’. In developing the story the author casts a spotlight on a little-known aspect of the Space Age, namely the military dimension. Today military satellites represent 25 percent of all satellites in orbit, and they are just as important now in preventing regional nuclear war as they were in preventing global Armageddon more than 30 years ago.

Beginning with a discussion of Sputnik 1, and the impact of its launch, both on the Soviets and on the West, the book continues to show the social, economic and scientific benefits of satellites today in our daily lives some 50 years later. The author introduces the concept of the Cold War nuclear stand off and mutually assured destruction and shows how spy satellites developed, and the problems of using them to verify arms limitation treaties. He identifies the significance of the ABM Treaty and of SALT and demonstrates how satellites were used to underpin such agreements. He then discusses fringe nuclear powers, such as the UK, France and China and the concept of nuclear non-proliferation. He concludes by looking at the regional tensions of today, including Israel and Arabic nations, India and Pakistan and the threat posed by North Korea, and looks ahead to what the future holds.

Customer Reviews (2)

Not as thorough as expected
Spies in the Sky, Surveillance Satellites in War and Peace.

From the title, I expected a book covering all aspects of spying from space. Instead, the author focuses on the first generation Corona program, based on film return in re-entry capsules. This is normal, because he was working in this project. Still, very little is said about other kinds of surveillance satellites, such as the signal interception, electronic signature intelligence, missile detection, atomic explosion detection, submarines monitoring, etc. No description of the Echelon program, or the Vortex system, for example.

Since the book is not restricted on US satellites, little is said about Soviet counterparts, some about the Zenith, equivalent to the Corona, but not much more. There is not even one word about the Almaz soviet program, which is one of the few examples of human operating spying devices from space, except perhaps the space shuttle.

His style is more narrative than descriptive, making the reading very easy. The subject is well introduced, but some comparison tables would have helped to gather and compare data.

As a conclusion, if this book had been titled :

US spy satellites, the Corona Program,it would have been an excellent book.

P. Haubrechts

Good review of topic
Norris is an englishman who has spent over 40 years in the aerospace industry and time on the U.S. Apollo program. Here he reviews the history and technology of spy satellites. Readers will find a good, fairly clear review of the topic based on secondary, unclassified resources. The first half of the book is heavily historical while the second half devotes more space to strategy and analysis. Easily understandable for undergrads and high schoolers, it reads like an extended article from Aviation Week and Space Technology. English origins are obvious but he succeeds in covering all the international players (U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China, India, etc.) and that is a strength of the work. A little bit repetitive and at least one footnote is not supported. (He cites Rhodes but there is no Rhodes in the biblography. No doubt he meant Richard Rhodes). Still, all-in-all a good overview of a topic where there isn't much available. High school, college and medium-sized or larger public libraries will find this a good purchase. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (26)

too optimistic?
Early on, McCoy states that this is not a work of moral outrage, that he simply seeks to determine whether it makes sense to pursue torture as a policy.Fortunately, this is not really the case, and his work brims with moral outrage.But he does make an argument.Torture often doesn't work, simply encouraging people to say anything to make the torture stop.If applied widely enough, as in Algeria (by the French) or Vietnam (by the US) it may work enough to seriously disrupt the networks of insurgents.However, this is likely to so anger the larger population that the political gain will turn out to be a loss.The French left Algeria not long after 'defeating' the FLN.McCoy also discusses the way torture becomes intertwined with state sanctioned murder, since the victims can't really be kept around to talk about what has been done to them.'Pump' (torture for information) and 'dump' (throw them out of a plane into the ocean) as they said in Vietnam.

The book is very useful in the US context for tracing a longer lineage to torture than is usually stated by liberals outraged by the Bush administration.McCoy goes back to the CIA thought control research of the late fifties and early sixties.What they eventually found was that psychological torture and self-inflicted pain were among the most effective interrogation techniques. Threatening someone with harm is more effective than actually inflicting it (although McCoy emphasizes at a number of points that in practice these two techniques are blurred). These findings were propagated around the world by various security forces training programs issuing from the US.They seem to have shaped the actions of the Reagan and Clinton adminstrations, which produced a US commitment to oppose torture that excluded the psychological forms. Various revised interrogation manuals always seem to return to these techniques. This set the stage for the unabashed usage of torture by the Bush administration, which, as it came under attack, began to play these same semantic games--that torture which does not do lasting harm or nearly induce death isn't really torture, that self-inflicted pain is not really torture, etc.McCoy also makes a strong argument that the Abu Graib scandal, rather than being the product of a few misguided individuals, came out of the attitude adopted by those at the pinnacle of the chain of command.
The last couple of chapters of the book deal with the backlash against torture, and it is here where I think McCoy goes a little askew. He sounds optimistic about the prospects of reform in the US, although he does hedge this view.He mentions a coalition of media, human rights groups, and liberal politicians challenging the Bush administration.But the role of the media was much more ambivalent. A recent study has shown that among the leading news agencies (often referred to as the 'liberal' media) in the US--NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post--the word torture more or less disappeared from news accounts of the US once the Bush administration began insisting that they were instead using 'harsh interrogation techniques.'As for liberals within the political establishment, we have seen a precipitious decrease in interest in this issue once Obama was sworn in (two years after the publication of this book), even though he has not fundamentally shifted policies.The question of torture remains quite wide open in the US (additionally, McCoy doesn't deal with the torture which is more widespread than most Americans would like to admit within the domestic policing and imprisonment complexes).Two years into the Obama administration, the prospect that impunity for high level American officials will give way to holding them responsible for their actions appears dim, at least within the US.
Overall, however, this is a very useful read that gives the reader a sense of the long term genesis of torture among US intelligence agencies.One striking absence--McCoy mentions NYPD Blue as a show that legitimates the use of 'bending the rules' i.e. torturing to get suspects to confess, and how this helps create a climate that legitimates the Bush administration mentality (he also mentions Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which dwelled on torture scenes).Apart from the fact that this show's heyday was in the 1990s, and it deals with a municipal police force, it is striking that McCoy failed to note the broadcasting of 24, which is far more explicit in its embrace of torture, both linking it very directly to the fight against terrorism and celebrating brutal acts much more explicitly than NYPD Blue (although Jack Bauer is much more obsessed with inflicting and prolonging pain than the sort of psychological techniques recommended by the CIA).Indeed, the US military, much more skeptical of torture than the CIA, actually pleaded with the producers to rane in this mentality.Meanwhile some have claimed the Bush administration adored the show.

Makes me feel ill
I could only read this book a few pages at a time, it brought bile to my mouth.To be presented with data detailing how my country tortures people made me renew my membership to Amnesty International.It makes me sad that he is writing about my country and the vile things we do.

Redefining Torture
A Question of Torture asks hard questions about the use of torture as a tool or method of gathering intelligence. It raises more than just a concern about its morality -- it questions the very effectiveness of the institution.

Anyone who feels that the "enemy" should be spared no quarter, anyone who has ever felt that we should do anything and everything possible to ensure our security (even if at the expense of our national conscience), should carefully review the points in this book. It shows, in dramatic fashion, that torture is not only morally wrong but largely ineffective. It explains how torture not only provides interrogators with inaccurate information (information collected under duress should always be considered unreliable), it demonstrates that use of this method is simply not worth the cost to a nation's international image.

Breaking the human spirit is easy, and this book brings to light and very clearly explains scientifically proven methods of torture that are as simple as they are horrifyingly effective.

This book should be required reading for any student of intelligence, criminal justice, or anyone who finds that thier occupation requires them to question detainees or suspects, including members of the US military.

Decent Book With Surprises
This is the second book I have read by Alfred McCoy- the first being The Politics of Heroin. I think it was a decent read. However, I enjoyed his first book much more- perhaps, because I have already read several books that delve into torture by the CIA and military. I think the book is very informative and delineates for the reader the origins and history of torture in the United States leading up to present day psychological (with some physical) interrogation techniques. He argues, backed up by various professional military and FBI sources, that torture does not work and actually leads to more conflict. Furthermore, using such brutal methods of interrogation does not provide the necessary intelligence thatestablishment sources desire and makes the terrorist threat larger by enraging those who are part of it- directly or indirectly. I think he is spot on in this matter and does a good job of presenting the facts of torture that haunt the military endeavors in Afghanistan and Iraq.

However, I am a bit surprised to find out that Milgram was funded by the CIA (so said according to McCoy). I would definitely would like to know how he was able to come up with this information- is there a source or evidence? It just seems far fetched. However for the time being, I will keep an open mind and wait for a second edition (which I am sure will come eventually) to find out if he details his proof. Recommended but keep in mind that one should take the Milgram piece with a grain a salt until further evidence is available.

Why do we torture?
Professor McCoy has done research all over the world, and is the definitive voice on this subject. This book is shocking and disturbing and absolutely essential to an understanding of what should be a major issue in our nation and the world.We should be above such ugly, inhuman tactics - but are we? ... Read more

Product Description
Using extensive materials from both published and private sources, this concise text focuses on United States-Soviet diplomacy to explain the causes and consequences of the Cold War. It explores how the Cold War was shaped by domestic events in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union and presents a variety of other points of view on the conflict--Chinese, Latin American, European, and Vietnamese. The text includes both engaging anecdotes and quotes from primary sources to support key points and exemplify policies, and recent scholarship and materials from openings of the U.S., Soviet, and Chinese archives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Serious but readable long-term expert avoids fashions of the moment
LaFebre first wrote this book in 1967, covering just 1945-46---the origins of the Cold War.In the next edition he expanded it to what is is today---a full length history up to the present time. It remains what it always has been -- a balanced, judicious account, full of the missed opportunities, misunderstandings, and occasional wrong choices on both sides. But this is no excuse or apologia for Soviet Communism by any means. It is true that it avoids the triumphalist "WE WON" tone is some recent revisionist books on the subject which sweep all doubt and misgivings, as well as missteps, that were the usual approach in honestly recounting Cold War before the end of Communism, when the threat of nuclear war was real and heavy.The ultimate fall of Communism was a very long time coming and indeed in the late 40s and early 50s, many experts felt that even if they needed to be resisted, there were so many problems inside their system, and the American system so much healthier (and richer) that it would crumble later, if not sooner, which it did of course.For those seeking a fair, calm history that sees all of this clearly and does not take a "they-lost-because-we-got-tough" outlook (which is a bit reductive, if not plain wrong), this admirable, scholarly book in its most recent of many editions (2002) fills the bill.

Balanced and Insightful
Overall a very efficient, analytic and even-handed overview of the Cold War's issues and origins. The anti-American bias perceived by other reviewers wasn't evident to me, particularly as the author takes a widely holistic approach to his subject. Political, economic, cultural and historical factors are considered, as are the personal predilections of key policy-makers on both sides. Motives and decisions are laid out within the qualitative context of their time, while consequences are relevantly tied to ours.

If LaFeber has an agenda, it's to implicitly demonstrate that rational and productive foreign policy can not come from a place of pride, fear and cynicism. In this he lets the records of Washington and Moscow speak for themselves, neither excusing nor apologizing for anyone.

A noisome interpretation of history
The USSR entered into a pact with Hitler, took half of Poland, attacked Finland and invaded the Baltic nations because of the United States, of course! If you didn't know that, or you disagree, you are not fashionably lefty and you will not like this book. This is what passes for history nowadays, a watered-down, slightly less tendentious view of the US and the West than Chomnsky's, but still with the same poison: blame the US first; blame the US always; defend/justify every tyranny, no matter how corrupt and homicidal, if said tyranny opposed the West and/or the US; serve as "history" to readers, many of whom have been brought up on a steady diet of "Sins of the Western World" right here in the colleges of this country. Zinn has walked this path as well, and what a fantastic, profitable business this West/America bashing is! I don't know if LaFeber sells as many books as Chomsky or Zinn, or if he is quoted by Matt Damon in moronic movies about geniuses (incidentally, someone better tell Damon that he only played a smart guy in the film Good Will Hunter), but the author of this pamphlet certainly has his middle finger right on the issues. Just like the pompous documentary The Cold War, this book by LaFeber loves to play the moral equivalence game: a sadist and murderer or tens of millions on one side; an elected president who had to make very hard decisions on the other: oh, well, they are the same. And the mas murderer wanted to be treated with respect, which the democrat would not give him! Bad democrat! It's your fault.

Tha rank odor of something definitely putrid is detectable immediately, in the first paragraph of the book, and it never leaves. Wear rubber gloves and a mask.

A decent survey book
I had to buy this book for a Cold War class during my masters program. It is a fairly thin book considering all that went on the Cold War but this is just meant to be a light survey of the Cold War years. To tell of the major events to people who may not be familiar with them. I did not think of it as having a very liberal bent to it like the previous reviewer. It is a little more liberal than other books out there but that is bound to happen. Just as there are more conservative leaning books written about the cold war. I recommend this book for anyone who is taking a class on the Cold War and needs some background information on it. It is easy to read and get through and tells of the major points in the Cold War between Russia and America.

Very bad survey of cold war
I wanted to check a beginner's book on cold war and was VERY disappointed. I don't understand why this book had so many editions, since it's very weak : narration is poor, overtly liberal, America is responsible for the cold war. The whole book looks as it's still in the 70s, with those laughable revisionnist ideas, old maps and cartoons.

One sentence sums up the spirit perfectly : "[The Berlin Wall] was mute and bloody testimony to the policy of both East and West which, since 1945, had preferred a divided rather than a neutralized and united Germany". (p.225) No comment.

The chapters, despite the mention "updated" are not updated at all, Zubok and Pleshakov isn't even mentioned. After reading the first chapters, i throwed it to the can. Gonna check John Gaddis instead. Oh boy, they should put a sticker "liberal orientation" on books to save people's money ! ... Read more

Product Description

Following on from McCauley's bestselling Origins of the Cold War, this book looks at the years from 1949 to 1991.

Customer Reviews (5)

terrible writing style, ok content
This book might merit two stars but certainly not more. There are a couple critical problems:

1) Writing Style - McCauley writes like a non-native English speaker and there is noticeable lack of editing. Many common expressions are slightly mis-used or missing prepositions or occaisionally whole words in phrases are missing. I find that this significantly slows down my reading because I mentally say "huh?" and re-read sentences that didn't appear to be correct the first time. McCauley also randomly lumps un-related issues together with no transitions; there will be a paragraph on Russian arms treaty negotation that trails off into a discussion of the Russian economy. Obviously the reader could infer that this might be relevant because poor economic performance incentivized Russia to reduce arms spending but it is never clear in these small instances why McCauley lumps various issues together.

2) Not a very good standalone book - This book might be ok used in conjunction with another textbook but if you aren't already familiar with Soviet government structure or many minor political figures in the USSR and client states you won't learn anything about them here.

3) Organization - this partly relates to what I said above; McCauley frequently drops mention of relatively minor political figures with no introduction. In addition, he writes with a strange mix of repeating, overlapping chronologies. He'll discuss a 10 year period of history rather thoroughly and then discuss it all over again with respect to another issue. This is difficult to avoid in this sort of work but he does it less transparently than a good author should.

4) Poor indexing job - in the age of computer indexing systems I don't really know how you can mess this up so badly - there are a number of figures mentioned in the book who do not appear in the index. This is annoying when you want to see if McCauley introduced a particular person earlier before assuming you knew about them (don't worry, he probably didn't).

Overall this book gives the impression that it was written by a smart person in about 2 days with little editing. It is not up to the standards of this series and certainly doesn't provide the depth of perspectives you would expect from a college level seminar.

Generally a good overview
Studying for my exams, this book gives a pretty good overview of the Cold War and the significant events that took place, all at a good pace. By moving chronologically and according to the different stages of the CW (as sectioned), it makes it easier to comprehend some of the periods where the tension increased all the way to the fall of the SU. Generally it was a good, informative read, and not to mention, entertaining at points- I found out that "the greatest disappointment for Khrushchev was that his ardent desire to visit Disneyland was frustrated- the Americans said they could not guarantee his safety". Furthermore, the book also includes a chronology, several documents from the period, and answers some questions which may be worth pondering over when dealing with the subject.

Student Review
As a student taking a first year University course in which this book is an assigned text, I have to say: there must be a textbook that is less boring than this one.In terms of facts, this book is great.Style-wise, it is enough to lull one to sleep.Best read in sections, carefully, closely, and with attention to detail so one doesn't have to read this book more than once, I would strongly suggest to any teacher or professor considering this as a text to supplement it with something that has a radically different style.Perhaps something with historical accounts intercut with the actual text rather than documents tacked on at the end.Just my opinion of course.:)

Not bad
A good overview of the main events of this period: if you're just generally curious about the Cold War and what the main events and trends in it were, this is quite suitable. However, the sheer brevity of the format of this series of books (and 'Seminar Studies' is very good, believe me) works against a fully fleshed-out account of this topic. There are mentions of certain events but they lack a little background needed to explain them. I kept finding myself reading some remark and thinking 'But *why* did that happen?'. Still, a good read, and well-explained.

An excellent overview
As an AP American Hisitory teacher, I was looking for a concise book that would give my students a good overview of the Cold War. This turned out to be an excellent book, well suited for my purpose. I have my students readthree books over the summer as they prepare for my class, this was one ofthe three. McCauley gives a concise account of the Cold War, starting withthe Berlin crisis of 1948 and ending with the fall of the Soviet Union. Hischronological framework to the book takes the reader through some verydifficult sernerios for the United States. McCauley starts off with somebackground material, giving the reader eight theories about the reasons forthe Cold War, some give the reader many interesting things to think aboutas they go through the book. McCauley then goes through the Cold War andbreaks it down into five generalized time periods. This makes it easier forstudents that may not know much about the time period to understand theCold War. McCauley ends the book by asking seven challanging questions forthe reader to ponder. This gives the reader a chance to digest theinformation and helps the reader come to some interesting conclusions. Thesixteen documents that McCauley provides also gives the readers of the bookdifferent ideas and causes as well as consequences of the Cold War that mayhave been missed in this short but excellent overview of the Cold War. ... Read more

Product Description

The Cold War dominated world affairs during the half century following World War II. It ended in victory for the United States, yet it was a costly triumph, claiming trillions of dollars in defense spending and the lives of nearly 100,000 U.S. soldiers. Apocalyptic anti-communism sharply limited the range of acceptable political debate, while American actions overseas led to the death of millions of innocent civilians and destabilized dozens of nations that posed no threat to the United States.

In a brilliant new interpretation, Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall reexamine the successes and failures of America’s Cold War. The United States dealt effectively with the threats of Soviet predominance in Europe and of nuclear war in the early years of the conflict. But in engineering this policy, American leaders successfully paved the way for domestic actors and institutions with a vested interest in the struggle’s continuation. Long after the USSR had been effectively contained, Washington continued to wage a virulent Cold War that entailed a massive arms buildup, wars in Korea and Vietnam, the support of repressive regimes and counterinsurgencies, and a pronounced militarization of American political culture.

American foreign policy after 1945 was never simply a response to communist power or a crusade contrived solely by domestic interests. It was always an amalgamation of both. This provocative book lays bare the emergence of a political tradition in Washington that feeds on external dangers, real or imagined, a mindset that inflames U.S. foreign policy to this day.

Customer Reviews (3)

ABOOKWORTHREADING
American Professor Frederick Logevall and British Professor Campbell Craig have teamed to give us a look at the reasons for the Cold War.Be aware you are about to look at things in a different perspective.We usually think of the United States working against the spread of Communism.This book lessens the Soviet threat and looks more closely at American politics and its impact on the Cold War.It is well worth the read to examine this idea whether you agree or not. The book often reads like an advanced lecture, but obvious these teachers are well versed and familiar with the details.RECOMMENDED

One step at a time, I guess
In this a couple of history professors, one American and one British, look at the American role in the Cold War and conclude the following:

1.There was no real Soviet 'threat'
2.Most of the 'threat' was generated by the US arms industry to keep the arms orders flowing.

They don't quite say this in so many words (very bad for careers, that sort of thing) but that's their drift. Of its ilk it's OK but it's small beer compared to, for example, Peter Dale Scott, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.

Robin Ramsa

A BRILLIANTAND ORIGINAL ANALYSIS OF THE COLD WAR
In the last months there were published a number of very good books on the Cold War.This book, however, is unique, because of its excellent analysis of the ideological conflict which spanned the latter half of the twentieth century.
Briefly stated, the authors' thesis is runs like this: the Cold War could have come to an end in the late fifties or in 1963, after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended.But there were other factors which unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and the Americans were responsible for this.
The story starts with Charles Beard's advice that, since America is a superpower separated from Europe, there "is no need for its militarization".Reality was different and the era of Woodrow Wilson
proved that if the USA did not become actively involved in worldly affairs, it would become isolated in light of the rising dictatorships in Europe and elsewhere.After the end of WW2,the Cold War started because of many and various reasons.The arms race gained momentum especially after the dropping of the two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities.It was only a matter of time and good intelligence gained from Russian spies for the Russians to get an atomic bomb of their own.President Truman,who is described by the authors as seeing the world in terms of black and white, preferred to take a tough hand against the Russians.The McCarthy years only inflated this atmosphere .The famous NSC-68 paper, drawn by Paul Nitze, advocated an aggressive approach towards the Reds.
But how to to this? How can you intimidate your enemy? By building a massive and expensive arsenal which was to be achieved by a military- industrial complex.Thus, the military budget shot up from $14 billion in 1949 to $ 53 billion in 1953(See page. 127)
In the bipolar world after 1945,the United states couldnot deal adequately withthe Soviet Union ,their bombs and the Chinese by strengthening thier alliances or establishing new one.Therefore,The USA turned to increase its own military capabilities.As a result of this policy, there were many sectors which had a lot to benefit from it-the armed forces,arms industrialists,labour unions associated with weapons industries,universities and other firms that had connections to military research.Corporations such as Lockheed,Convair,General Dynamics,McDonnell,Pratt and Whitney, and Gruman-many of them clustered in Texas and California- became hugely profitable and highly dependable on militery contracts.Their lobby representatives on the House and Senate were key players that determined defense expenditures.
Eisenhower, who took a tougher hand against the Soviets,understood how dangerous such a nexus was for the USA and the world and in one of his speeches warned and alerted the American people against this danger of "military-industrial complex"- an alliance of gropus which benefited from endless growth of military spending and endless overseas confrontation.(p.193)
All this continued during the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, in spite of the fact that specialists warned that the USA would never win the Vietnam war, and this course of events ran until the demise of the 'Evil Empire'- as it was dubbed by Reagan.All this went on in spite of the fact that the American policy- makers knew very well that from the end of the fifties the USA had the upper hand in the arms race and that the Soviet Union stopped being a real threat to the USA.Kennedy, for instance, had this information, but he had to satisfy the appetite of the military-industrialists' complex.
Add the fact that some other lobbyists- Israeli and Latin American-
put a lot of pressure on the various administrations to sell their respective countries weapons and you get an even greater ,vast panorama of this mammoth complex.
Could the Cold War have ended earlier? Yes, it could.But there was "an addiction" to magnify the supposed danger to the USA(p.369) which only increased the presence of duty personnel and military commitments in many countries in the world.The authors claim, justly, that this phenomenon is still going on these days.
This book will hammer at you on every page and you wil get new insights about this fascinating period like you never had before.
Five stars definitely go to this meticulously-researched, interestingand original book! ... Read more