Sigaba
10-02-2012, 18:38
Introduction
The purpose of this thread is to discuss the history and the historiography of the Cold War. By history, I mean the basic questions of who, what, when, where, why and how. By historiography, I mean the ways historians answer those questions and debate the answers to formulate additional questions.
This specific post and the one that follows have the immediate objectives of (a) framing some of the broader issues of Cold War historiography through a series of caveats, (b) providing an exceedingly brief overview of how historians have discussed the origins of the Cold War, and (c) providing a handful of recommended readings.^
Objective (b) is addressed in post #5, below. Objective (c) is will be addressed in a subsequent post. But first, it is incumbent upon me as a historian to offer four caveats. For those disinterested in such advisories, please proceed to post #5.
Four Caveats
Before proceeding, I must offer four caveats IRT the historiography of the Cold War's origins that are, to varying degrees, applicable to other scholarly debates over the U.S.-Soviet rivalry.
The first caveat centers around the dynamism of the question at hand.
The second touches upon the nature of the historiographical debate surrounding that question in terms of its complexity.
The third addresses the tone of the debate.
The fourth warning focuses on a key difference between the way academic historians study the past compared to non historians.
The specifications for this discussion were laid out as follows.Sigaba - I think that would be an interesting topic - worthy of a separate thread. Would you be so good as to start a separate thread outlining the "that question" from a historian point of view? Please include a few (just a few) references for us to get up to speed.While my next post offers what I hope is a serviceable thumbnail, readers should understand that a truncated discussion of any aspect of Cold War--but especially its origins-- simply cannot do justice to the topic.
Depending upon where you sit, the origins of the Cold War can be traced to back to America's rise to globalism in the late 1890s, the First World War, the Interwar period, the Second World War, or the days and years that followed VJ Day. The geographic dimensions are equally broad. Did the Cold War start in Europe (Eastern, Central, or Western), the Middle East, or in Asia (East or South East)? An equally pressing question is: at its core, what was the fundamental nature of the Cold War? Was it driven primarily by geopolitical, economic, ideological, personal, political, or cultural factors? Or was it driven by a mix thereof? Did this mix remain constant or did it change depending upon geographic and temporal factors?
Second, the historiography of the Cold War's origins is equally complex. While central questions and issues frame the debate, the debate itself sprawls. Academic historians use the debate over the Cold War's origins to make points beyond the immediate topic. These points address broader issues of the history of American foreign relations, the craft of history, the trajectory of American national security strategy, America's proper role in global affairs, and, at times, the personal and professional rivalries among historians. A byproduct of this complexity is an intellectual terrain that turns over regularly and that presumes a level of familiarity with that terrain's previous configurations.
Consequently, from time to time, a senior historian will write a long essay discussing the state of the field and identifying the leading edges of research. In such pieces, trajectories of intense inquiry covered in scores of monographs, journal articles, conference papers, speeches, and dissertations that are the byproduct of years of research, painstaking historical analysis, careful writing, and heated debate are boiled down to paragraphs, sentences, footnotes, turns of phrases, and, at times, snarky titles.
In some cases, this compacting reflects the process by which the process of historical reappraisals renders earlier interpretations anachronistic (if not flat out wrong). In other cases, the compacting means that historians have reached a consensus that leads to preceding interpretations being accepted as sustainable. In either case, such acts of truncation can present serious pitfalls because they often assume a level of expertise that general readers may not have the time or the interest to develop.#
Third, one must take into account at all times the profound bitterness surrounding the historical discussions of the Cold War. As one senior historian recently put it.Understanding events at the time they occurred was hard enough. But even historians with the inestimable advantage of hindsight have found it difficult. Parallel to the Cold War we have also faced a historiographical Cold War, not so much between East and West...as between academics within the West. The war in Vietnam broke a social contract within the US elite in the most painful manner. Thereafter few fields of historical inquiry as Cold War history have been so beset by political dispute in open and covert form.* Although this infighting was most prominent during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the acrimony continued well into the 1990s.** While the conversation has toned down over the past decade or so, the emotional aspects of the historiographical debate endure.
Yet, notwithstanding the bitterness of the scholarly debates surrounding the Cold War, professional academic historical scholarship allow for a convention that is increasingly out of fashion in mainstream America: the ability to disagree with even substantial parts of an argument while simultaneously embracing the overall work. Because the study of history is ultimately about advancing the debates surrounding interpretations of the past, works that disagree with established POVs are often more important than works that affirm a set of views. As an example of this dynamic, I would refer readers to Wilson D. Miscamble, The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan (2011) which I briefly discusshere (http://professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=434104&postcount=919).
Throughout this work, Miscamble articulates with increasing energy his disagreement with many of the key points in Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (2006). Yet, simultaneously, Miscamble frequently uses that same work as a reference in his notes. Moreover, despite his objections with the book, he clearly respects the historian who wrote it. (If you ever have occasion to cross paths with Professor Hasegawa, you won't wonder why.)
Consequently, because of these four caveats, I urge those reading this this thread to understand that when it comes to the serious study of the history and historiography of the Cold War, there are, at present, neither simple questions nor easy answers.
Now, on to tasks (b)...
__________________________________________________ ______
^ This discussion draws heavily upon the following essays. Ernest R. May, "The Cold War: Preventing World War II," in his "Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (1973; paperback edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 19-51; J. Samuel Walker, "Historians and Cold War Origins: The New Consensus," in American Foreign Relations: A Historiographical Review, ed. Gerald K. Haines and J. Samuel Walker, Contributions in American History, no. 90 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), 207-236; John Lewis Gaddis, "The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War," Diplomatic History, 7:3 (July 1983): 171-190, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., "Why the Cold War," in his The Cycles of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986), 163-216; Geir Lundestad, "Moralism, Presentism, Exceptionalism, Provincialism, and Other Extravagances in American Writings on the Early Cold War Years," Diplomatic History, 13:4 (fall 1989): 527-545; Michael H. Hunt, "The Long Crisis in U.S. Diplomatic History," Diplomatic History 16:1 (winter 1992): 115-140; John Lewis Gaddis, "The Tragedy of Cold War History" SHAFR presidential address delivered at Washington, D.C, 29 December 1992, Diplomatic History, 17:1 (winter 1993): 1-16; Odd Arne Westad, "The Cold War and the international history of the twentieth century," in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, 3 vols., ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, volume 1: Origins (2010; paperback edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1-19.
# Indeed, these pitfalls can even snare established academics. As an example, in his essay "The Long Crsis in U.S. Diplomatic History," Michael Hunt categorizes two historians in markedly different ways than I came to know them when I studied under them.
* Jonathan Haslam, Russia's Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011), x.
** See, for example, Bruce Cummings, “Revising Postrevisionism,” or, The Poverty of Theory in Diplomatic History," Diplomatic History, 17:4 (October 1993):539–570. This essay was a direct response to John Lewis Gaddis and it reflected the mutually held contempt between the two historians; the previous spring, Gaddis casually referred to Cummings as a "fraud" during one of the George W. Littlefield Lectures at the University of Texas at Austin.
The purpose of this thread is to discuss the history and the historiography of the Cold War. By history, I mean the basic questions of who, what, when, where, why and how. By historiography, I mean the ways historians answer those questions and debate the answers to formulate additional questions.
This specific post and the one that follows have the immediate objectives of (a) framing some of the broader issues of Cold War historiography through a series of caveats, (b) providing an exceedingly brief overview of how historians have discussed the origins of the Cold War, and (c) providing a handful of recommended readings.^
Objective (b) is addressed in post #5, below. Objective (c) is will be addressed in a subsequent post. But first, it is incumbent upon me as a historian to offer four caveats. For those disinterested in such advisories, please proceed to post #5.
Four Caveats
Before proceeding, I must offer four caveats IRT the historiography of the Cold War's origins that are, to varying degrees, applicable to other scholarly debates over the U.S.-Soviet rivalry.
The first caveat centers around the dynamism of the question at hand.
The second touches upon the nature of the historiographical debate surrounding that question in terms of its complexity.
The third addresses the tone of the debate.
The fourth warning focuses on a key difference between the way academic historians study the past compared to non historians.
The specifications for this discussion were laid out as follows.Sigaba - I think that would be an interesting topic - worthy of a separate thread. Would you be so good as to start a separate thread outlining the "that question" from a historian point of view? Please include a few (just a few) references for us to get up to speed.While my next post offers what I hope is a serviceable thumbnail, readers should understand that a truncated discussion of any aspect of Cold War--but especially its origins-- simply cannot do justice to the topic.
Depending upon where you sit, the origins of the Cold War can be traced to back to America's rise to globalism in the late 1890s, the First World War, the Interwar period, the Second World War, or the days and years that followed VJ Day. The geographic dimensions are equally broad. Did the Cold War start in Europe (Eastern, Central, or Western), the Middle East, or in Asia (East or South East)? An equally pressing question is: at its core, what was the fundamental nature of the Cold War? Was it driven primarily by geopolitical, economic, ideological, personal, political, or cultural factors? Or was it driven by a mix thereof? Did this mix remain constant or did it change depending upon geographic and temporal factors?
Second, the historiography of the Cold War's origins is equally complex. While central questions and issues frame the debate, the debate itself sprawls. Academic historians use the debate over the Cold War's origins to make points beyond the immediate topic. These points address broader issues of the history of American foreign relations, the craft of history, the trajectory of American national security strategy, America's proper role in global affairs, and, at times, the personal and professional rivalries among historians. A byproduct of this complexity is an intellectual terrain that turns over regularly and that presumes a level of familiarity with that terrain's previous configurations.
Consequently, from time to time, a senior historian will write a long essay discussing the state of the field and identifying the leading edges of research. In such pieces, trajectories of intense inquiry covered in scores of monographs, journal articles, conference papers, speeches, and dissertations that are the byproduct of years of research, painstaking historical analysis, careful writing, and heated debate are boiled down to paragraphs, sentences, footnotes, turns of phrases, and, at times, snarky titles.
In some cases, this compacting reflects the process by which the process of historical reappraisals renders earlier interpretations anachronistic (if not flat out wrong). In other cases, the compacting means that historians have reached a consensus that leads to preceding interpretations being accepted as sustainable. In either case, such acts of truncation can present serious pitfalls because they often assume a level of expertise that general readers may not have the time or the interest to develop.#
Third, one must take into account at all times the profound bitterness surrounding the historical discussions of the Cold War. As one senior historian recently put it.Understanding events at the time they occurred was hard enough. But even historians with the inestimable advantage of hindsight have found it difficult. Parallel to the Cold War we have also faced a historiographical Cold War, not so much between East and West...as between academics within the West. The war in Vietnam broke a social contract within the US elite in the most painful manner. Thereafter few fields of historical inquiry as Cold War history have been so beset by political dispute in open and covert form.* Although this infighting was most prominent during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the acrimony continued well into the 1990s.** While the conversation has toned down over the past decade or so, the emotional aspects of the historiographical debate endure.
Yet, notwithstanding the bitterness of the scholarly debates surrounding the Cold War, professional academic historical scholarship allow for a convention that is increasingly out of fashion in mainstream America: the ability to disagree with even substantial parts of an argument while simultaneously embracing the overall work. Because the study of history is ultimately about advancing the debates surrounding interpretations of the past, works that disagree with established POVs are often more important than works that affirm a set of views. As an example of this dynamic, I would refer readers to Wilson D. Miscamble, The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan (2011) which I briefly discusshere (http://professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=434104&postcount=919).
Throughout this work, Miscamble articulates with increasing energy his disagreement with many of the key points in Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (2006). Yet, simultaneously, Miscamble frequently uses that same work as a reference in his notes. Moreover, despite his objections with the book, he clearly respects the historian who wrote it. (If you ever have occasion to cross paths with Professor Hasegawa, you won't wonder why.)
Consequently, because of these four caveats, I urge those reading this this thread to understand that when it comes to the serious study of the history and historiography of the Cold War, there are, at present, neither simple questions nor easy answers.
Now, on to tasks (b)...
__________________________________________________ ______
^ This discussion draws heavily upon the following essays. Ernest R. May, "The Cold War: Preventing World War II," in his "Lessons" of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (1973; paperback edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 19-51; J. Samuel Walker, "Historians and Cold War Origins: The New Consensus," in American Foreign Relations: A Historiographical Review, ed. Gerald K. Haines and J. Samuel Walker, Contributions in American History, no. 90 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), 207-236; John Lewis Gaddis, "The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War," Diplomatic History, 7:3 (July 1983): 171-190, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., "Why the Cold War," in his The Cycles of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986), 163-216; Geir Lundestad, "Moralism, Presentism, Exceptionalism, Provincialism, and Other Extravagances in American Writings on the Early Cold War Years," Diplomatic History, 13:4 (fall 1989): 527-545; Michael H. Hunt, "The Long Crisis in U.S. Diplomatic History," Diplomatic History 16:1 (winter 1992): 115-140; John Lewis Gaddis, "The Tragedy of Cold War History" SHAFR presidential address delivered at Washington, D.C, 29 December 1992, Diplomatic History, 17:1 (winter 1993): 1-16; Odd Arne Westad, "The Cold War and the international history of the twentieth century," in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, 3 vols., ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, volume 1: Origins (2010; paperback edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1-19.
# Indeed, these pitfalls can even snare established academics. As an example, in his essay "The Long Crsis in U.S. Diplomatic History," Michael Hunt categorizes two historians in markedly different ways than I came to know them when I studied under them.
* Jonathan Haslam, Russia's Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011), x.
** See, for example, Bruce Cummings, “Revising Postrevisionism,” or, The Poverty of Theory in Diplomatic History," Diplomatic History, 17:4 (October 1993):539–570. This essay was a direct response to John Lewis Gaddis and it reflected the mutually held contempt between the two historians; the previous spring, Gaddis casually referred to Cummings as a "fraud" during one of the George W. Littlefield Lectures at the University of Texas at Austin.