How would a ______
historian interpret
each of these events?
Western Liberal
(Orthodox USA)
Soviet Orthodox
Revisionist
(USA)
Post-Revisionist
(USA)
Post-Cold War
(USSR)
Marxist
Kennan’s Long Telegram,
February 1946
Churchill’s Iron Curtain
Speech, March 1946
& Stalin’s Response
Red Army occupation of
Eastern Europe, 19451947
Truman Doctrine &
Marshall Plan, 1947
How would a ______
historian interpret each
of these events?
Western Liberal
(Orthodox USA)
Soviet Orthodox
Revisionist
(USA)
Post-Revisionist
(USA)
Post-Cold War
(USSR)
Marxist
Cominform, October
1947
Czech Coup, February
1948
Berlin Crisis, 1948-9
Blockade & Airlift
NATO, 1949
&
Warsaw Pact, 1955
Orthodox / Traditional
(Western Liberal)
Post-WWII
•USSR: Major responsibility for the breakdown of
the Grand Alliance
•Refusal of Stalin to abide by Yalta
•Communist Expansion
•US under Truman had no choice but to check
Soviet expansionism
•Ideological incompatibility of the 2 superpowers
(Schlesinger)
•Traditional goals of Russian expansionism
(Morgenthau)
•Cold war = product of mutual misunderstanding
(Morgenthau)
•Key Figures: Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Hans
Morgenthau
Revisionist
Post-revisionist
Formal Antithesis to Orthodox
Most recent
•Support Soviet view that at the end of WWII,
USSR was too crippled by war to pose any
significant threat to USA for years (while USA
emerged as the strongest)
•Economic factors = important cause (Kolkos)
•Truman fabricated myth of hostile USSR to win
public support for interventionist strategies
(Kolkos)
•Refusal of USSR to subordinate its economic
system and political structure to US influence –
main reason cold war continued
•American economic expansionism (Block)
•Real fear = loss of (economic) Europe, Middle east
& Asia to revolutions (Parenti)
•Red Menace = conjured up to support
counterrevolutionary aid (Parenti)
•Incorporates orthodox and revisionist
interpretations
•Domestic policies, bureaucratic inertia, quirks of
personality, and innacurate as well as accurate
perceptions of Soviet intentions = all important in
shaping US policy (Gaddis)
•Strategic security interests not economic interests
drove US policy (Pollard)
•Both security and economic concerns were
important in formulating strategy - not to balance
power but achieve a preponderance of it (Leffler)
•Ideological differences = important (orthodox
view)
•Ideology = insufficient to explain intensification of
Cold War
•US & USSR emerged as strongest military powers,
relatively isolated before war, collide in post-war
power vacuum
•US used economic power to fashion a world
friendly to American capitalism (revisionist view)
•Stalin’s immediate post-war aims were limited
(revisionist view)
•Stalin as victim of America
•Growing antagonism re: Germany
•Marshall plan, NATO vs. Molotov plan & Berlin
blockade, Warsaw pact
•Policies of Truman laid groundwork for global cold
war
•With the status quo frozen in Europe, the Third
World quickly became the main arena of
superpower competition
•Key Figures: Michael Parenti, Gabriel and Joyce
Kolko, Fred Block
Powaski – the cold war
•Key Figures: John Lewis Gaddis, Robert Pollard,
Malvyn Leffler
Orthodox / Traditional
Revisionist
(Western Liberal)
Formal Antithesis to Orthodox
Post-WWII
Began in 1959
•Aggressive expansionist actions of Stalin 
Break up of Grand Alliance, Russians responsible
for Cold War
•Until 1947: USA = Passive & wanted cooperation
w/ USSR
•Communist aggression prompted USA to react &
defend democracy
•USA not motivated by self-interest or territory,
innocent in world affairs
•Post-WWII policy of universalism  rejected
spheres of influence
•William Appleman Williams: The Tragedy of
American Diplomacy (considered heretical at the
time)
•Sweeping re-evaluation of American policy since
the 1890s (Open Door expansionism as basis for
20th century American empire)
•Post-WWII: Looking to expand open,
international, capitalist, trading system  wished
to implement an economic, political, and
ideological agenda that would usher in the
American century
•USA, didn’t start Cold War, but USSR not totally to
blame
•1960s: America in Caribbean & Vietnam spurred
revisionism (lent credence to radical analyses)
•A-bomb = ends WWII in Japan, but also a warning
to USSR
•USA emerged from WWII unscathed, nobody else
did
•USSR & Stalin = not solely responsible
•Not as simple as preserving freedom (such a
view does violence to the historic record)
•FDR & Truman not innocent
•US commitment to universalism = haphazard &
hypocritical
•Attempts at synthesis
•John-Lewis Gaddis: The United States and Origins
of the Cold War, 1914-1947, published in 1972
•Gaddis = father of post-revisionism
•George Herring: Aid to Russia, 1941-46: Strategy,
Diplomacy, and the Origins of the Cold War,
published 1973
•Willingness to accept evidence cited by
revisionists, but not conclusions
•Accept 2 basic orthodox contentions: Soviet
expansionism & US fear of USSR (over capitalist
push) in designing containment
•Not merely orthodox plus archives
•Key figures: William Appleman Williams, Gar
Alperovitz, Joyce & Gabrieal Kolko, Lloyd Gardner,
Walter LaFeber, Barton Bernstein
•Wisconsin School of diplomatic history: Williams,
LaFeber, Gardner, McCormick
•“New Left” label
•Rober James Maddox, 1973, The New Left and the
Origins of the Cold War  attack on revisionism
•Imperial framework of analysis
•The synthesis that represents a new consensus
•Key figures: Arthur M Schlesinger Jr, Louis Halle,
Herbert Feis, Joseph Jones
•1st hand accounts = neither impartial nor objective
•Emergence of revisionists put Orthodox historians
on the defensive
Crapol, Edward,
Some Reflections on
the Historiography
of the Cold War, The
History Teacher, vol
20, no 2, Feb 1987
•Impact  dispute orthodox interpretation on all
counts
Weltanschauung: A particular philosophy or way of life
Post-revisionist
1970s +
•USA used economic instruments to secure
political ends
•Stalin had no ideological blueprint for
communist world revolution  he was an
opportunist who exploited openings
•Confirm revisionist contention that USA did
exaggerate danger of communism to advance
political objectives
•Accept existence of American empire, although
contend it was primarily defensive – invitation
not coercion
•Key Figures: Gier Lundestad, Maelvyn Leffler
•Harshest revisionist critic – Thomas McCormick –
argues that post revisionism does a patch job, a
bridge, not synthesis
•McCormick  corporatist synthesis
Orthodox / Traditional
Revisionist
(Western Liberal)
When American Consensus
crumbled (c. Vietnam)
Post-WWII
•Soviet union = responsible for
the Cold War
•USSR = expansionist, Suspicious
of the West, Marxist
revolutionaries bent on world
domination
•Stalin – violated Yalta &
Potsdam & plotted to take over
the world with Moscow at the
center
•The US had to act defensively 
Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan,
NATO
•Key Figures: Arthur Schlesinger,
WH McNiell, H Feis
•USA = responsible for the cold
war
•Dollar diplomacy – US actions
tied to capitalism
•Containment of communism =
driven by a US desire to secure
markets for free trade and
penetrate Eastern Europe
(Williams)
•Open Door Policy
•Soviet actions less relevant to
US policy – Capitalist drive
(Kolkos)
•Coercion characterized US
reconstruction diplomacy
(Patterson)
•Stalin = pragmatic, would have
made concessions if US had
understood him
•Mast Radical = Gar Alperovitz 
advanced theory by British
Physicist PMS Blackett, A-bombs
on Japan = not the end of WWII,
but the start of the Cold War
(Japan = already defeated,
bombs to scare USSR)
Pearson Chapter
•Key Figures: William Appleman
Williams, Gabriel and Joyce
Kolko, Thomas Patterson, Gar
Alperovitz (most radical,
Cambridge political economist)
Post-revisionist
Post Cold War
Most recent
After 189-91
•Does not exactly combine
orthodox and Revisionist
Does stress that neither USSR
nor USA = solely responsible
Consensus of opinion
Misconceptions played a key
role, superpowers
overestimated strength & threat
of the other, pattern of action &
reaction(Gaddis & LaFeber)
Both sides = improvising, rather
than following a well defined
plan of action
Stalin’s search for security was
not deterred by drawing lines
The west did not fully recognize
Stalin’s motives
Key Figures: John Lewis Gaddis,
Walter LaFeber
•Fall of USSR
•New Soviet sources made
available
•Russian historians = free to
write without communist party
censorship
•Post-Soviet era Russian
historians
•Led Gaddis to modify some
initial claims  place more
focus on the role of Stalin 
Stalin’s policies +
totalitarian/authoritarian
government drove west into
escalation of hostilities and arms
race  also considered if Stalin,
rather than other key leaders
were removed from the
equation (John Foster Dulles) 
Cold War would not have
started