The Causes of the Cold War

by Stewart Ross

Book Overview

This book explores US-Soviet rivalry and the hostility stemming from their incompatible ideologies of liberal democracy and communism. It gives a clear account of East-West antagonism from the falling... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Library Binding
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0836852729
• ISBN13: 9780836852721
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: World Almanac Library
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.3" x 9.7"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7

Customer Reviews

A solid introduction for kids to the causes of the Cold War

I suspect the current generation has no appreciation for what it was like to live during the Cold War, when there was a shared assumption that sooner or later things were going to go nuclear and that was the way the world was going to end. Now all that remains of such fears are references to World War III in "Star Trek" and post-apocalyptic movies like "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" and the like. "The Causes of the Cold War" examines the roots of the Cold War struggle, focusing on the contrasting ideologies of the Soviet Union and the Western liberal democracies (the addition of those two adjectives alone makes it clear that this was more than a struggle between communism and democracy). Stewart Ross also looks at the history of Russian communism and the descent into mutual suspicion between the East and the West after World War II. Each chapter is divided into several discrete sections, with sidebars on every two-page spread that focuses on a particular person, event, or issue. The chapter devoted to the Roots of the Cold War does a nice job of looking at both the influences of Karl Marx and the Russian Revolution along with the rise of liberal democracy, including a concise distinction between capitalism and communism. After that point Ross basically lays out the history of how the Cold War started, looking at the decision to divide Europe after the end of World War II, the communist advances in Eastern Europe, and the development of the American position on containment. Later chapters look at the "Hot War" in Korea and where U.S.-Soviet relationships stood with the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. The strength of this volume is in the breadth of what is covered more than the depth, which is appropriate for this type of juvenile history series. Ross touches on most of the major points on this topic (the only omission I would point to would be the desire of the Soviet Union to control the Polish corridor since that was the route taken by invading armies from the Teutonic knights to Napoleon and Hitler). The book is illustrated with lots of historic photographs and art, including a nice selection of editorial cartoons and propaganda posters, which usually bring history alive more than the standard photographs. The back of the volume has a Glossary, a list of useful books, videos and webs sites, and an index. Other volumes in The Cold War series examine pivotal Cold War conflicts including the Berlin blockage, the Korean War, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Vietnam War. There is also a volume that looks at "The End of the Cold War" and explains how the inevitable nuclear war never happened.