Part 1 Annotated further reading guide

The Origins and Development of the Cold War, 1945–53

There is a vast literature on the origins of the Cold War. Students who wish to read a general account of the origins of the Cold War from an orthodox or traditional post-revisionist perspective should sample one of the following texts:

  • J. L. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941–1947 (Columbia University Press, New York, 1972).
  • Randall B. Woods and H. Jones, Dawning of the Cold War: The United States Quest for Order (University of Georgia Press, Athens; London, 1991).
  • A. Offner, Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-53, Stanford, (Stanford University Press, 2002) is a recent account.

Those wishing to evaluate revisionist or non-orthodox post-revisionist works should look at:

  • M. P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power. National Security, the Truman Administration and the Origins of the Cold War (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1992).
  • T. McCormick, America’s Half Century: US Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2nd edn., 1995).
  • T. G. Paterson, On Every Front: the Making and Unmaking of the Cold War (W. W. Norton, New York, 1992).

For an interesting comparison of the two sides’ approaches:

  • R. Levering et al, Debating the Origins of the Cold War: American and Russian Perspectives, (Lanham,MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002)

On the issue of whether the Cold War was primarily about power or about ideology and culture:

  • H. Jones and R. B. Woods et al, ‘The Origins of the Cold War: A Symposium’ Diplomatic History (1993) and the commentaries by E.
  • Michael Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1987).
  • Rosenburg, A. Stephanson, and B. Berstein Michael Hunt, Ideology and Foreign Policy (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1987).
  • J. L. Gaddis, ‘The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War’ and ‘Responses to John Lewis Gaddis, “The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War” ’ Diplomatic History, 2 (1983).

For more theoretical works which incorporate some assessment of the empirical evidence:

  • Odd Arne Westad (ed.), Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (Frank Cass, London, 2000).
  • Allen Hunter (ed.), Rethinking the Cold War (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1998).
  • Anders Stephanson, ‘Fourteen Notes on the Very Concept of the Cold War’ http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/essays/PDF/stephanson-14notes.pdf

Cold War writing in the West has often been confined to a set of assumptions such as an expansionist Soviet Union, the idea of containment, the influence of communism as a crusading ideology, and has assessed the Cold War in terms of who was most to blame. In terms of these standard parameters two books deserve particular mention for challenging them:

  • Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin America’s Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc 1947–1956 (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2000).
  • Scott Lucas, Freedom’s War: The US Crusade against the Soviet Union 1945–1956 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1999).
  • Sarah Jane Corke, US Covert Operations in the Cold War Strategy: Truman, Secret Warfare and the CIA (Routledge, London, 2007)

On the tensions in the Grand Alliance that developed in 1945 and early 1946:

  • J. Kent, British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War 1944–1949 (Leicester University Press, Leicester; New York, 1993).
  • J. L. Gormly, The Collapse of the Grand Alliance 1945–1948 (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1987).
  • R. L. Messer, The End of an Alliance (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1982).

On Cold War economic policy:

  • Ian Jackson, The Economic Cold War: America, Britain and East-West trade, 1948-63 (Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2001).
  • M. J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987
  • R. A. Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War 1945–1950 (Columbia University Press, New York, 1985).).

On post-war atomic issues:

  • C. Craig and Y. Smirnov, The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2006)
  • D. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939–1956 (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1994).
  • F. Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1983).
  • G. Herken, The Winning Weapon: the Atomic Bomb in the Cold War 1945–1950 (Knopf, New York, 1980).

Specifically on the dropping of the first atom bombs:

  • Gar Alperowitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (Fontana, London, 1996).
  • Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2005).
  • Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the use of the atomic bombs against Japan (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2004).

On NATO and militarization:

  • J. Kent and J. W. Young, ‘Britain the Third Force and the Origin of NATO: in Search of a New Perspective’, in B. Heuser and R O’Neill (eds.), Securing Peace in Europe (Macmillan, London, 1992).
  • J. Kent and J. W. Young, ‘The Western Union Concept and British Defence Planning 1947–48’ in Aldrich (ed.), British Intelligence Strategy and the Cold War (Routledge, London, 1992).
  • T. P. Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance (Aldwych Press, London, 1981).
  • E. R. May (ed.), American Cold War Strategy; Interpreting NSC-68 (Bedford Books of St Martin’s Press, Boston, 1993).

On the crises in the Middle East and the Mediterranean:

  • J. Kent, British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War 1944–1949 (Leicester University Press, Leicester; New York, 1993).
  • E. Mark, ‘The War Scare of 1946 and its Consequences’, Diplomatic History 3 (1997).
  • L. L’Estrange Fawcett, Iran and the Cold War: the Azerbaijan Crisis of 1946 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; New York, 1992).
  • B. Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1980).
  • Jamil Hasanli, At the Dawn of the Cold War: the Soviet-American crisis over Iranian Azerbaijan (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, 2006).

On the Soviet actions in Eastern Europe:

  • Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, Russia and the World 1917–1991 (Arnold, London, 1998).
  • V. Zubok and K. Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1996).
  • V. Mastny, Russia’s Road to the Cold War (Columbia University Press, New York, 1979).
  • V. Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity the Stalin Years (Oxford University Press, New York, 1996).
  • N. Naimark and L. Gibianskii (eds.), The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe 1944–1949 (Westview, Oxford, 1997).
  • Specifically on the personality of Stalin:
  • Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: the court of the Red Tsar (Phoenix, London, 2007).
  • Robert Service, Stalin: a biography (Pan, London, 2010).

On Western Europe:

  • Alan Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State (Routledge, New York, 2nd edn., 1992).
  • Alan Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945–1951 (Methuen, London, 1984).
  • John W. Young, France, the Cold War and the Western Alliance 1944–1949 (Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1990).
  • William Hitchcock, France Restored, 1944-54 (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1998).

On the German question:

  • C. Eisenber, Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany 1944–1949 (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1996).
  • S. Mawby, Containing Germany: Britain and the Arming of the Federal Republic (St Martin’s Press, New York, 1997).
  • J. McAllister, No Exit: America and the German Problem: 1943-1954, (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2002).

On Palestine and the Middle East:

  • Mark A. Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994).
  • W. Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East 1945–1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism (Clarendon, Oxford, 1984).

On the Iranian crisis:

  • J. A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: the Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1989).
  • M. J. Gasiorowski, Mohammad Mossadeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 2004).

For the CIA:

  • R. Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2nd edn., 1999).
  • V. Marchetti and J. D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (Jonathan Cape, London, 1974).
  • J. Ranelagh, The Agency: the Rise and Decline of the CIA (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1986).

For American intelligence and subversion:

  • Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (John Murray, London, 2001).
  • Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: secret intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (HarperCollins, New York, 1995).
  • Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: the history of the CIA (Doubleday, New York, 2007).

For Soviet intelligence and subversion see:

  • C. M. Andrew and O. Gordievsky, KGB: the Inside Story (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1990).
  • C. M. Andrew and Vasily Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive The KGB in Europe and the West (Allen Lane, London, 1999).
  • J. T. Richelson, Sword and Shield: Soviet Intelligence and Security Service Operations (Ballinger, Cambridge, 1986).

On China and Korea and the nature of East Asian problems not defined in terms of a Soviet–American global confrontation:

  • O. A. Westad, ‘Losses, Chances and Myths: the United States and the Creation of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1946–1950’ Diplomatic History, 2 (1997).
  • Chen Jian, ‘The Myth of America’s Lost Chance in China’, Diplomatic History, 2 (1997).
  • Shen Zhihua, ‘Sino-Soviet Relations and the Origins of the Korean War: Stalin’s Strategic Goals in the Far East’ Journal of Cold War Studies, 2 (2000).
  • W. W. Stueck, The Korean War: an International History (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995).
  • Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War (Colombia University Press, New York, 1994).
  • William Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War (Princeton University Press, 2002).
  • S. N. Goncharov, J. W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners. Stalin, Mao and the Korean War (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1993).
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