Study Of John Gaddis' New Cold War History

John Gaddis is a famous American expert on Cold War History and a major representative of the "post-revisionist School" in the history of cold war,once called“leading authority of the Cold War History”by the New York Times.In the course of his cold war history,Gaddis created a new paradigm of Cold War History,namely,"New Cold War History".Gaddis thought that we should take advantage of the special historical period of the End of the Cold War,and examine the history that lasted for nearly half a century with the standpoint of the onlooker.Secondly,the New Cold History advocated using the multilateral archives of the United States,the Soviet Union and its allies to study the Cold War History in an omnidirectional perspective,not as the previous study,only to use the literature of the United States and its western camps.The text structure of this paper is divided into three parts.The first part mainly introduces Gaddis' s study on the Origins of the Cold War.Gaddis believes that the United States and the Soviet Union both eagerly hope for peace after the Second World War,but the US and the Soviet Union have seriously misjudged a series of measures adopted by the two countries in safeguarding the interests of their respective countries after the war,and overestimate the threats between each other.Gaddis conducted in-depth studies on the hot issues of the Cold War history from the national level and the system level.He believes that both the United States and the Soviet Union should not be responsible for the origin of the Cold War alone,but Gaddis believes in the division of responsibilities.The Soviet Union should bear the main responsibility,because the Soviet Union's "special environment" is more conducive to breeding Stalin's "dictatorship." The second part mainly introduces Gaddis' study on the end of the Cold War.In the middle of the 20 th century,the United States was deeply mired in the Vietnam War and the international influence was declining.At the same time,the Soviet Union's science and technology developed rapidly.The gap with the United States has gradually narrowed,and it has even surpassed the United States in some areas.This has led the United States to re-examine the relations with tie Soviet Unions and sought to ease with the Soviet Union.On the other hand,the Soviet Union also implied a crisis behindits rapid development.The arms race has caused the Soviet Union's economic development to be seriously disordered,and the domestic contradictions and conflicts with its allies are increasingly intentified.In Gaddis' view,the end of the Cold War was mainly because the United States adopted the correct strategy(containment strategy,differentiation strategy)to promote the internal division of the Soviet Union and dismantle its sphere of influence in Europe.For the reason that the Cold War can last for nearly half a century,Gaddis believes that the diversification of power is an important cause of this phenomenon.In the sphere of international relations theory,Gaddis explored the causes of the failure of certain international relations scholars to predict the end of the Cold War,and studied and criticized behaviorism,structuralism,and evolutionists.The chapter concludes with a description of Gaddis' own prediction of the post-cold-war world.He believes that the trend of world integration after the Cold War has strengthened and that the end of the Cold War has made world peace a real possibility.He also pointed out that due to the loss of bipolar structure,it also led to the rise of extreme nationalism worldwide.The third part mainly introduces Gaddis' study on the nature of the Cold War.After the end of the Cold War,the Cold War History scholars were able to stand in a more complete perspective to examine this section of history.What is the Cold War?This is the first question that all Cold War historians must discuss.Gaddis discussed the nature of the Cold War from three aspects.The first explanation is "Invited Empire" and "Forced Empire".Gaddis thinks that both the United States and the Soviet Union established the "Empire" after World War II,but the difference is that the Soviet Union is forcibly established,the United States is an "Empire" built by his allies "invitation",and there are essential differences between the two countries;The second explanation is that the Cold War was a struggle between "justice and evil",because the series of brutal acts of the Soviet Union after occupying Germany had subverted the anti-fascist justice image of wartime.The Germans used actual actions after the Soviet occupation of Germany.Rebelling against the occupation of the Soviet Union,the United States actively helped Europe resume its war-damaged economy after it occupied Europe,and was welcomed by its European allies;The third explanation is that the Cold War is a wrestle between different ideologies.Gaddis believed that the Cold War was a mode ofprotest formed by the gap in the social system and ideology of the United States and the Soviet Union,because both parties have held at this time.The use of nuclear weapons by both sides is deterred by nuclear weapons,so this is also the reason why the Cold War has not formed direct and full confrontation.Through the study of Gaddis' “New Cold War History”,we can see that although Gaddis' Cold War history research is innovative,it also has a tendency to return to “the Orthodoxy School” of the Cold War to a certain extent.The most typical is Gaddis' In the Cold War responsibilities,he believed that the Cold War was caused by Stalin.Of course,Gaddis' research methods during the study of the history of the Cold War also have considerable enlightenment for our future research in history.