Cold War - Post-Revisionists
- Created by: Kieranpeel
- Created on: 22-08-19 15:06
View mindmap
- Cold War - Post-Revisionists
- Some historians were dissatisfied with the extremities of both perspectives
- The new approach pioneered by John Lewis Gaddis was dubbed Post-Revisionism began during the 1970s
- Looked for a middle ground between Orthodox and Revisionist
- Academics synthesised ideas and conclusions from both types of historians
- They also had the advantage of time, hindsight, the cooling passions of detente and later declassified documents from both sides
- Sometimes referred to as "Eclecticism" because it borrowed heavily from existing research
- They called it "New Orthodoxy" because they believed in pushed responsibility for the Cold War back onto the Soviet Union
- A significant Post-Revisionist account was Gaddis' 1972 book The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947
- He considered explanations for the cold war but widened his focus by examining external and internal influences
- He acknowledged the limitations of not having access to the Soviet archives
- He identified several factors that contributed to the outbreak of the cold war
- lack of communication or formal recognition
- the delay in opening a second front in Europe, leaving the soviets unaided in battle for 3 years
- Washington's refusal to recognise a Soviet sphere of influence in eastern Europe
- Trumans 'atomic diplomacy' and the refusal to share nuclear technology with the Soviets
- Other historians to embrace this new approach were Ernest May, Melvyn Leffler and Marc Trachtenberg
- He considered explanations for the cold war but widened his focus by examining external and internal influences
- Contains a diversity of perspectives and arguments, though there are identifiable trends
- Most suggest that Stalin was an opportunist and a pragmatist rather than an international revolutionary who is hell-bent on exporting communism around the world
- They also accept that American foreign policy often involved overreach and was driven partly by economic imperatives
- They tend to focus on domestic systems and factors when examining Cold War policies, internal and party policies, domestic economic conditions, bureaucracies and security agencies
Comments
No comments have yet been made