Professor Leffler explodes the myths of how America defeated the Soviet Union in the cold war. It is always good to be reminded of how political actors get pushed by the forces compelling them forward or are blinded by their own presuppositions. While Truman and Stalin, and Khrushchev and Kennedy were able to stumble through to a realpolitik their successors saw things less clearly, could less resist their own reactionaries or were overwhelmed by events they could not control. Leffler portrays the Cold War as a sequence of swings from a kind of tested balance following World War II to the nadir of American influence in the seventies as the third world liberated itself invoking socialist rhetoric and the Soviets profited from high oil prices to the '80s when entrepreneurship spread in Asia, third world countries floundered, and the Soviet Union's economy weakened. What is interesting in books about the cold war is that the American military juggernaut does not stop. The US constantly overrates Soviet ability because it suits so many interests to do so and thereby fails engage in the real kinds of disarmament the Soviets offer.
Leffler's book offers us heroes and villains. Among the latter Brzezinski stands out. Although Carter's could not see real national interest through the veil of his unrealistic commitment to human rights, nonetheless his secretary of state undermined what could have been an even greater additions to détente. Of course he was abetted by such Democratic hawks as the Senator from Boeing. The great hero is Gorbachev. Although Reagan because of his unquestioned conservative principles made a good co-conversant for Gorbachev, Leffler, as others, puts to bed the lie that Reagan's military spending brought the Soviet's to their knees and destroyed the "evil empire." Gorbachev knew that the Soviets didn't have to match the US in order to survive: their strike ability was just too great. They could not be bullied. Gorbachev, as almost all of the post Stalin leaders, knew that the Soviet union had to get its economic house in order and that the military drained that. He had the mistaken hope that this could be achieved retaining a socialist dream. Although not explored by Leffler, the Soviet command economy had too many flaws, so when loosed it produced mafia like mechanisms to keep production going. And worse, unlike China, the Soviet Union was rife with ethnic conflicts dating back way before the Revolution and exacerbated by Stalinist repression. These broke out in uncontrollable ways so that even if Gorby wanted to unleash, "it is good to be rich," while maintaining political control as in China, he couldn't. No question, Gorbachev is the greatest hero of the 20th century. Reagan was his accomplice but he could have pulled it off without Reagan. The sad part is that the transition might have been much earlier and maybe smoother if political and economic forces within the US hadn't profited from the Cold War. As Leffler pointed out in the Reagan/Gorbachev negotiations the US got their way 85% of the time. With Bush the lesser and Co. we are seeing the fruits of that imbalance in the harm the US has done in the Middle East and the erosion of US dominance which bodes so strongly in the future as it now appears.
Charlie Fisher author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World

Melvyn has written a completely readable history of the Cold War. Very even handed in his treatment of all presidents beginning with Truman and ending with George Bush Sr. It is easy today to look back on this era and think that it was a waste of a great amount of resources. In a way it was, however it's important to never forget the sole ambition of the USSR was world domination; Marx, Lenin and the dialectic predicted this, or so they thought. The Soviets worked very hard to bring it about. In the end, capitalism won, as it will always win.