John Lewis Gaddis

In this fascinating new interpretation of Cold War history, John Lewis Gaddis focuses on how the United States and the Soviet Union have managed to get through more than four decades of Cold War confrontation without going to war with one another.Using recently-declassified American and British documents, Gaddis argues that the postwar international system has contained previously unsuspected elements of stability. This provocative reassessment of contemporary history--particularly as it relates to the current status of Soviet-American relations--will certainly generate discussion, controversy, and important new perspectives on both past and present aspects of the age in which we live.

The “dean of Cold War historians” (The New York Times) now presents the definitive account of the global confrontation that dominated the last half of the twentieth century. Drawing on newly opened archives and the reminiscences of the major players, John Lewis Gaddis explains not just what happened but why—from the months in 1945 when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. went from alliance to antagonism to the barely averted holocaust of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the maneuvers of Nixon and Mao, Reagan and Gorbachev. Brilliant, accessible, almost Shakespearean in its drama, The Cold War stands as a triumphant summation of the era that, more than any other, shaped our own.

A master class in strategic thinking, distilled from the legendary program the author has co-taught at Yale for decadesJohn Lewis Gaddis, the distinguished historian of the Cold War, has for almost two decades co-taught grand strategy at Yale University with his colleagues Charles Hill and Paul Kennedy. Now, in On Grand Strategy, Gaddis reflects on what he has learned. In chapters extending from the ancient world through World War II, Gaddis assesses grand strategic theory and practice in Herodotus, Thucydides, Sun Tzu, Octavian/Augustus, St. Augustine, Machiavelli, Elizabeth I, Philip II, the American Founding Fathers, Clausewitz, Tolstoy, Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Isaiah Berlin. On Grand Strategy applies the sharp insights and wit readers have come to expect from Gaddis to times, places, and people he's never written about before. For anyone interested in the art of leadership, On Grand Strategy is, in every way, a master class.

Widely and enthusiastically acclaimed, this is the authorized, definitive biography of one of the most fascinating but troubled figures of the twentieth century by the nation's leading Cold War historian. In the late 1940s, George F. Kennan—then a bright but, relatively obscure American diplomat—wrote the "long telegram" and the "X" article. These two documents laid out United States' strategy for "containing" the Soviet Union—a strategy which Kennan himself questioned in later years. Based on exclusive access to Kennan and his archives, this landmark history illuminates a life that both mirrored and shaped the century it spanned.Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Biography

What is history and why should we study it? Is there such a thing as historical truth? Is history a science? One of the most accomplished historians at work today, John Lewis Gaddis, answers these and other questions in this short, witty, and humane book. The Landscape of History provides a searching look at the historian's craft, as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us today.Gaddis points out that while the historical method is more sophisticated than most historians realize, it doesn't require unintelligible prose to explain. Like cartographers mapping landscapes, historians represent what they can never replicate. In doing so, they combine the techniques of artists, geologists, paleontologists, and evolutionary biologists. Their approaches parallel, in intriguing ways, the new sciences of chaos, complexity, and criticality. They don't much resemble what happens in the social sciences, where the pursuit of independent variables functioning with static systems seems increasingly divorced from the world as we know it. So who's really being scientific and who isn't? This question too is one Gaddis explores, in ways that are certain to spark interdisciplinary controversy.Written in the tradition of Marc Bloch and E.H. Carr, The Landscape of History is at once an engaging introduction to the historical method for beginners, a powerful reaffirmation of it for practitioners, a startling challenge to social scientists, and an effective skewering of post-modernist claims that we can't know anything at all about the past. It will be essential reading for anyone who reads, writes, teaches, or cares about history.

When Strategies of Containment was first published, the Soviet Union was still a superpower, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, and the Berlin Wall was still standing. This updated edition of Gaddis' classic carries the history of containment through the end of the Cold War. Beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt's postwar plans, Gaddis provides a thorough critical analysis of George F. Kennan's original strategy of containment, NSC 68, The Eisenhower Dulles "New Look," the Kennedy Johnson "flexible response" strategy, the Nixon Kissinger strategy of detente, and now a comprehensive assessment of how Reagan and Gorbechev completed the process of containment, thereby bringing the Cold War to an end.He concludes, provocatively, that Reagan more effectively than any other Cold War president drew upon the strengths of both approaches while avoiding their weaknesses. A must read for anyone interested in Cold War history, grand strategy, and the origins of the post Cold War world.

Did the Soviet Union want world revolution? Why did the USSR send missiles to Cuba? What made the Cold War last as long as it did? The end of the Cold War makes it possible, for the first time, to begin writing its history from a truly international perspective. Based on the latest findings of Cold War historians and extensive research in American archives as well as the recently opened archives in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China, We Now Know provides a vividly written, eye-opening account of the Cold War during the years from the end of World War II to its most dangerous moment, the Cuban missile crisis.We Now Know stands as a powerful vindication of US policy throughout the period, and as a thought-provoking reassessment of the Cold War by one of its most distinguished historians.

John Lewis Gaddis' acclaimed history of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union during and immediately after World War II is now available with a new preface by the author. This book moves beyond the focus on economic considerations that was central to the work of New Left historians, examining the many other forces―domestic politics, bureaucratic inertia, quirks of personality, and perceptions of Soviet intentions―that influenced key decision makers in Washington, and in doing so seeks to analyze these determinants of policy in terms of their full diversity and relative significance.

The Cold War ended with an exhilarating wave of the toppling of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the dissident poet Vaclav Havel, the revolution in Romania. Americans rejoiced at the dramatic conclusion of the long struggle. "But victories in wars--hot or cold--tend to unfocus the mind,"writes John Gaddis. "It can be a dangerous thing to have achieved one's objectives, because one then has to decide what to do next." In The United States and the End of the Cold War , Gaddis provides a sharp focus on the long history of the Cold War, shedding new light on its sudden ending, as wellas on what might come next.In this provocative, insightful book, Gaddis offers a number of thoughtful essays on the history of international relations during the last half century. His reassessments of important figures and themes from the Cold War are sometimes surprising. For example, he portrays John Foster Dullesand Ronald Reagan as far more flexible and perceptive statesmen than the missile-toting caricatures depicted in editorial cartoons. And he takes a second look at the importance of espionage and intelligence in Cold War history, a field often left to buffs and spy novelists. Most important, hefocuses on the central elements in superpower relations. In an eloquent account of the American style of foreign policy in the twentieth century, for instance, he explores how Americans (having learned the lesson of Adolf Hitler) consistently equated the forms of foreign governments with theirexternal behavior, assuming that authoritarian states would be aggressive states. He also analyzes the "tectonics" of Cold War history, demonstrating how long term changes in international affairs and Soviet bloc countries built up pressures that led to the sudden earthquakes of 1989. And alongthe way, Gaddis illuminates such topics as the role of morality in American foreign policy, the relevance of nuclear weapons to the balance of power, and the objectives of containment. He even includes (and criticizes) an essay entitled, "How the Cold War Might End," written before the dramaticevents of recent years, to demonstrate how quickly the tide of history can overwhelm contemporary analysis. Gaddis concludes with a thoughtful consideration of the problems and forces at work in the post-Cold War world.Author of such works as The Long Peace and Strategies of Containment , John Lewis Gaddis is one of the leading authorities on postwar American foreign policy. In these perceptive, highly readable essays, he provides a fresh assessment of the evolution of the Cold War, and insight into the shapeof things to come.

From the capricious reign of Catherine the Great and Alexander I to the provocative leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, the author concentrates on the interplay between interests and ideologies in the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, in an even-handed, non-ideological narrative.

Jak se z válečných spojenců tak rychle po roce 1945 stali nepřátelé na život a na smrt, kteří rozdělili svět na dva nesmiřitelné a po zuby ozbrojené tábory? A jak to všechno najednou skončilo? Teprve dnes, když je studená válka už patnáct let minulostí, můžeme začít hledat přesvědčivý a nezaujatý pohled na ni. V napínavé knize John Lewis Gaddis vysvětluje nejen co se stalo, ale i jak se to stalo: Proč Sovětský svaz brutálně potlačil povstání ve Východním Německu, Maďarsku a Československu, jak se Kennedy a Chruščov postavili navzájem proti sobě ve věci kubánské krize, proč Nixon a Mao Ce-tung usilovali o obezřetné sblížení, a co si nakonec mysleli o své vlastní činnosti Jan Pavel II., Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcherová a Michail Gorbačov. Faktografická hodnota díla je stejně vysoká jako vypravěčské umění, odhaluje, jak vysocí političtí představitelé od vrcholu a obyčejní lidé zdola společně zvrátili směr dějin a vybojovali jedno z největších vítězství lidského ducha v dějinách.

Geniusze strategii, wydanie 2

Professor Gaddis delivered his lecture before the University of Oxford on 18 May 1993.

Mikor került az emberiség legközelebb a harmadik világháborúhoz? Mi történt a szovjet atombomba kifejlesztésétől az amerikai csillagháborús terv meghirdetéséig? Hogyan látták az 56-os magyar forradalmat a vasfüggöny túloldalán? Miként packázhatott a két szuperhatalommal De Gaulle Franciaországa, Castro Kubája, Tito Jugoszláviája vagy éppen egy sor harmadik világbeli diktátor? Mekkora szerepet játszottak a hidegháború lezárásában az olyan átütő hatású politikai őstehetségek, mint amilyen Margaret Thatcher, Lech Wałęsa, II. János Pál pápa vagy Ronald Reagan volt? És miért érdemelte meg mindenkinél jobban a Nobel-békedíjat az utolsó szovjet pártfőtitkár, Mihail Gorbacsov?Ezekre és még számos más izgalmas kérdésre ad nem egyszer meglepő választ John Lewis Gaddis. A Pulitzer-díjas szerző a hidegháború történetének egyik legnagyobb hatású kutatója imponáló magabiztossággal vág utat az ismert és kevésbé ismert történelmi tények, közelmúltbeli politikai események dzsungelében, beváltva a könyvéhez fűzött reményeket, amely így egyszerre lett szórakoztatóan olvasmányos és lenyűgözően tárgyszerű.

History of the Cold WarGeorge Orwell is the author of the "Cold War Reality" "And covers the history of the Cold War and the modern history of the world in a comprehensive way. It is a glimpse through the author s comment that it is the moment of the eruption of the human race, the reality of the Cold War which is dotted with fear and deceit, and the director of the Cold War. It approaches the themes rather than chronological narratives and draws the history of the Cold War as a full-length novel.Because war is a political intention, as Clausewitz says of the war theory that political intent is the goal and war is the means to achieve it , It is positive that the mid-twentieth century war ended in the Cold War. Since we chose the Cold War instead of the all-out war, we have been able to survive so far, so that we can vividly convey the history scene and the visa.The history and logic of the Cold War era, which defines the twentieth century, is examined, and discussions and deceptions, dictatorships and power struggles and ordinary people Of the world.

Swedish / Svenska