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The Cold War

There are many interpretations of the Cold War; orthodox, revisionist, post-revisionist and it’s so difficult to formulate an evaluation or analysis on certain events. To what extent does the history of the Cold war support an Orthodox interpretation?

I'm trying to provoke my self into thinking more deeply, and analytically, so any thoughts thrown in would of much help, and greatly appreciated.

Reply 1

scottweiland

The first step is to put a structure on your essay. For this question, you might want to try two approaches.

1. Go through the events of the Cold War that you find are important, and see how accurately the Traditionalist school explains these events

2. Go through what the Traditionalist/Orthodox interpretation is eg. accomodating and passive USA, aggressive and expansionist USSR, irrational and evil stalin, and then go through the events of the cold war.

Personally, the second is easier.

This is how i'd structure it

Intro: what the orthodox interpretation is
2: why does it fail - too simplistic. mention that the orthodox intepretation is itself a function of the cold war, influenced by the prevailing attitudes at that time towards the soviet union. note that the soviet archives remained closed.
3: then give the examples of where it fails. talk about
the motivations of the soviets - 'defensive but provocative', as Leffler puts it.
the motivations of the americans: not entirely altruistic. eg. the marshall plan: how does it benefit america?
the role of Western Europe: the 'empire by invitation'
explore the action-reaction dynamic, the possibility of misinterpreted intentions due to ideological prejudices

also explore the non-ideological 'realist' explanation, that it resulted from a fundamental clash of strategic interest, beyond the simple blameless misperception of the post-revisionist argument. how about the idea that each party was at times aggressive and at times defensive? also note the continuing desire to avoid all out confrontation throughout the cold war - which theory does that fit? does it even fit a theory at all?

clearly, the assertion seems to stand on very flimsy ground. don't dismiss it entirely - talk about how it might be plausible from a very limited perspective. you might also want to explore the historiography of the cw - why might that perspective become popular, whether the orthodox interpretation reflects the kind prejudice towards the cold war that was prevalent on capitol hill, whether that school of thought has a political purpose, of perhaps justifying containment.

the cold war is deeply complex, you probably dont have to put the last point in an exam essay, but it's an interesting angle to pursue

and btw i've just finished my a level history last week, am in the middle of exams. have english on wednesday. i'm not sitting the exam in britain, am taking it overseas with the cambridge board. that would be OCR in the uk i think.

Reply 2

wattever33

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.
Karl Popper

Reply 3

gbduo

You forget Liberal...formed in the 60s. Shocking! :lol:

To what extent questions are fairly easy to answer...

Intro, Argue for and examples, Argue against and examples, conclusion.

So how does the Orthodox view support the events in the Cold War (did the USSR ever have a policy of expansionism...Eastern Europe/Korea/China??) and how does the orthdox view not support the events in the Cold War (Were E.Europe, Korea and China actually expansionism, why were the USSR not exactly forthcoming in taking new land?!)

Graham