Cold War Triumphalism: The Misuse of History After the Fall of Communism

by Ellen Schrecker (Editor)

The book that is provoking a major reexamination of the legacy of the Cold War.

In 2002, President George W. Bush declared, "The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national freedom, democracy, and free enterprise." Cold War Triumphalism exposes the ideological roots of such unabashed triumphalist accounts, and counters the current attempt to rewrite the history of the Cold War struggle.

Assembling some of the nation's leading historians of U.S. foreign policy, the Cold War, and recent American history, Cold War Triumphalism captures a generation of critical scholarship on America's rise to global dominance after World War II. At a time when history is increasingly invoked to vindicate the war on terrorism, neoliberal globalization, and recent American military ventures, this book provides a necessary challenge to right-wing mythologizing. Widely praised when first published in hardcover, this book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand American global politics in the twenty-first century.

Genres: History

359 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Ellen Wolf Schrecker is an American professor emerita of American history at Yeshiva University. She has received the Frederick Ewen Academic Freedom Fellowship at the Tamiment Library at NYU. She is known primarily for her work in the history of McCarthyism.

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dated, if consistently interesting work--similar to exploring past proctological visits as you're waiting for your first colonoscopy--the volume focuses on the inane reliance of American politicians and, increasingly, their constituents, on empty, vapid, and context-less abstractions.
"Patriotism", "Americanism", "America First"--call it what you will, it all has its shitty, shitty roots in the Cold War miasma. The essays are largely hits, even the economic ones, probably the most relevant though they fall short of addressing that foremost neoconservative lesson learned from the Cold War--expand and attack the countries demanding "socialism", but rely on the people (via taxation) to do so. Huh.
The section on intellectuals was my least favorite, because, frankly, who cares what they thought. Far more engrossing and relevant are the chapters on Chalmer Johnson's "three Cold Wars" (easily the best) and the bits on the early Cold War and the American propensity to wild misunderstand that people loathe and resent the bad things that you do to them. That's why bombs are going off in the US, England, and France.
Will we ever learn?
Anyway, a commendable effort.

[AskHistorians]

A great collection of essays that challenges the assumption that the U.S. "won" the Cold War. There are several good essays about the American intellectual life during the Cold War that examine such notable figures as Reinhold Niebuhr, William Appleman Williams, and John Lewis Gaddis.