America's Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity

Belknap Press, 2009 8vo (22 cm), [6], 439 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket. The Cold War dominated world affairs during the half century following World War II. It ended in victory for the United States, yet it was a costly triumph. In a brilliant new interpretation, Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall reexamine the successes and failures of America's Cold War. The United States dealt effectively with the threats of Soviet predominance in Europe and of nuclear war in the early years of the conflict. But in engineering this policy, American leaders successfully paved the way for domestic actors and institutions with a vested interest in the struggle's continuation. Long after the USSR had been effectively contained, Washington continued to wage a virulent Cold War that entailed a massive arms buildup, wars in Korea and Vietnam, the support of repressive regimes and counterinsurgencies, and a pronounced militarization of American political culture.