The Cold War

A History in Documents

Second Edition

Allan M. Winkler

Pages from History

The cold war lasted for more than fifty years and polarized the world. Rooted in political and ideological disagreements dating back to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the war emerged from disputes that intensified in the wake of World War II. In The Cold War: A History in Documents, Second Edition, Allan M. Winkler excerpts speeches by Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and British prime minister Winston Churchill in order to demonstrate the growing abyss between the two political systems. President Harry S. Truman's announcement of the existence of a Soviet atomic bomb and his speech to Congress launching the Truman Doctrine testify to the gravity of the situation. The complex politics of the Vietnam War appear in voices of those as divergent as Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh, President Lyndon B. Johnson, antiwar protestors, and a participant in the My Lai massacre. A picture essay, "The Atom Unleashed," provides a collection of photographs and cartoons tracing one of the most controversial discoveries of the twentieth century. And a final chapter chronicles in detail the end of the cold war.

The Cold War

A History in Documents

Second Edition

Allan M. Winkler

Pages from History

Description

The cold war lasted for more than fifty years and polarized the world. Rooted in political and ideological disagreements dating back to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the war emerged from disputes that intensified in the wake of World War II. In The Cold War: A History in Documents, Second Edition, Allan M. Winkler excerpts speeches by Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and British prime minister Winston Churchill in order to demonstrate the growing abyss between the two political systems. President Harry S. Truman's announcement of the existence of a Soviet atomic bomb and his speech to Congress launching the Truman Doctrine testify to the gravity of the situation. The complex politics of the Vietnam War appear in voices of those as divergent as Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh, President Lyndon B. Johnson, antiwar protestors, and a participant in the My Lai massacre. A picture essay, "The Atom Unleashed," provides a collection of photographs and cartoons tracing one of the most controversial discoveries of the twentieth century. And a final chapter chronicles in detail the end of the cold war.

The second edition of The Cold War: A History in Documents offers more thorough coverage of the 1970s through the1990s. The book features additional material on China and Africa, and several new images, including a Herblock editorial cartoon about the Marshall Plan and a French Communist Party poster for peace in Vietnam. There is also a revised note on sources and interpretation and updates to the lists of further reading and websites.

Previous publication dates

June 2003

The Cold War

A History in Documents

Second Edition

Allan M. Winkler

Pages from History

What Is a Document?
How to Read a Document

Introduction
Note on Sources and Interpretation

Chapter 1: Early Antagonism
Origin of the Atomic Bomb
Tensions and Strategies
The Truman Doctrine
The Marshall Plan
A Soviet Bomb
The China White Paper
NSC-68
War in Korea

Chapter 2: The Anticommunist Crusade
Hollywood and HUAC
Chambers vs. Hiss
The Rosenbergs on Trial
Senator Joe McCarthy
Cultural Responses
Army vs. McCarthy

Chapter 3: To the Brink
Eisenhower's Inaugural Address
Liberation of Captive Peoples
The Domino Theory
Unstable Peace
Kennedy's Inaugural Address
Bay of Pigs
Standing Up to the Soviets
The Cuban Missile Crisis

Chapter 4: Picture Essay
The Atom Unleashed

Chapter 5: Catastrophe in Vietnam
French Colonial Rule
War in Indochina
The Geneva Conference
Nation Building in Vietnam
Horrors of War
Antiwar Movement
Vietnamization
Reunification

Chapter 6: An End at Last
The Nuclear Test Ban Treat of 1963
SALT Treaties
Reagan's Nuclear Strategy
An End to the Cold War

Timeline
Further Reading
Websites
Text Credits
Picture Credits
Index

The Cold War

A History in Documents

Second Edition

Allan M. Winkler

Pages from History

Author Information

Allan M. Winkler is Distinguished Professor of History at Miami University in Ohio. A prize-winning teacher, he is author of ten books of his own, including "To Everything There Is a Season": Pete Seeger and the Power of Song (OUP, 2010), Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America (2005), and Life Under a Cloud: American Anxiety about the Atom (1993), and coauthor of the college textbook The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society (2011) and the high school textbook America: Pathways to the Present (2002).