Status Updates From The World of the Cold War 1...

Initially I struggled to find a way that Zubok was able to distinguish his book from other histories of the Cold War but I do think his particular focus on the Soviet side of the great game, being a soviet historian himself, is an angle that adds greatly to the history. I do think the book still limits its scope but that that’s not really the point and that it’s still worth while.

Interesting and does a good job of incorporating the Soviet perspective but it lacks the social side of the story. It fits within Zubok’s wider body of work where he very focused on the particular personalities and decisions in diplomacy, much like in Collapse, yet doesn’t incorporate a thorough enough understanding of the social waves these historical actors were acting around. Not that they are totally absent.