The Cold War - by John Lewis Gaddis (Paperback)

About the Book

Beginning with World War II and ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the author provides a thrilling account of the strategic dynamics that drove the age. The work is rich with illuminating portraits of its major personalities and fresh insight into its most crucial events.

Book Synopsis

"Outstanding . . . The most accessible distillation of that conflict yet written." --The Boston Globe

"Energetically written and lucid, it makes an ideal introduction to the subject." --The New York Times

The "dean of Cold War historians" (The New York Times) now presents the definitive account of the global confrontation that dominated the last half of the twentieth century. Drawing on newly opened archives and the reminiscences of the major players, John Lewis Gaddis explains not just what happened but why--from the months in 1945 when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. went from alliance to antagonism to the barely averted holocaust of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the maneuvers of Nixon and Mao, Reagan and Gorbachev. Brilliant, accessible, almost Shakespearean in its drama, The Cold War stands as a triumphant summation of the era that, more than any other, shaped our own.

Gaddis is also the author of On Grand Strategy.

Review Quotes

"Outstanding . . . The most accessible distillation of that conflict yet written." --The Boston Globe

"Energetically written and lucid, it makes an ideal introduction to the subject." --The New York Times

"A fresh and admirably concise history . . . Gaddis's mastery of the material, his fluent style and eye for the telling anecdote make his new work a pleasure." --The Economist

About the Author

John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of History at Yale University. His previous books include The United States and the Origins of the Cold War; Strategies of Containment; The Long Peace; We Now Know; The Landscape of History; Surprise, Security, and the American Experience; and The Cold War: A New History. Professor Gaddis teaches courses on Cold War history, grand strategy, international studies, and biography; has won two Yale undergraduate teaching awards; was a 2005 recipient of the National Humanities Medal; and is the winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for George F. Kennan.