John Lewis Gaddis' acclaimed history of US 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.

About the Author

John Lewis Gaddis is professor of history at Yale University

Table of Contents

Preface to the New EditionPrefaceAbbreviations Used in the Footnotes 1. The Past as Prologue: The American Vision of the Postwar World2. The Soviet Union and World Revolution: the American View, 1941-19443. Cooperating for Victory: Defeating Germany and Japan4. Repression versus Rehabilitation: The Problem of Germany5. Security versus Self-Determination: The Problem of Eastern Europe6. Economic Relations: Lend-Lease and the Russian Loan7. Victory and Transition: Harry S. Truman and the Russians8. The Impotence of Omnipotence: American Diplomacy, the Atomic Bomb, and the Postwar World9. Getting Tough with Russia: The Reorientation of American Policy, 194610. To the Truman Doctrine: Implementing the New Policy11. Conclusion: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War BibliographyIndex

Reviews

[T]he most satisfactory post-revisionist treatment of American policy making to date. New York Times Book Review History moves fast, and it is a rare book that stays current after almost 30 years. John Gaddis's "postrevisionist" study of how the United States and Soviet Union got themselves into such sterile conflict of interests following the defeat of the Axis remains one of the best books available on this crucial period. The Daily Yomiuri An exceptionally elegant and detached example of post revisionism. (from the first edition) The New York Review of Books