The Cold War as History

Abstract

In fall of 1991, as Soviet Union was disintegrating, Michael J. Hogan asked a group of diplomatic historians to write brief essays commenting on end of Cold War. Twenty contributors gave their views in articles that originally appeared in 1992 in Diplomatic History, journal that Hogan edits for Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. The authors meet all tests of political correctness. There are revisionists and postrevisionists, American and foreign historians, generalists and regional specialists, and even a token woman. Predictably, result is disappointing. If you ask historians to give their views about current events, you are likely to get, as you do here, a set of rambling comments that have all consistency of an academic bull session. Deprived of very essence of their craft, documentary evidence and perspective that only passage of time can afford, these writers struggle valiantly with their charge, but end up, with only a few exceptions, by restating well-known views and stressing obvious. The end of Cold War, it turns out, leads to same division among scholars as once-explosive issue of its origins. The postrevisionists, inheritors of now defunct orthodox view of this subject, see outcome as confirming their belief in rightness of American cause, while revisionists, faithful to their assumptions to end, view it as substantiating all their suspicions about real motives behind containment. The downfall of communism becomes for first group ultimate justification for waging Cold War-the triumph of liberty over tyranny. For dissenters, however, outcome simply confirms their claim that American leaders, acting from ulterior motives, had all along exaggerated Soviet strength to carry out a design for world hegemony. John Lewis Gaddis, restating the long peace theme he put forward in 1980s, stresses ideology as determining factor in rivalry between

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