The causes of the Cold War and how it developed into one of the largest unarmed struggles in history have been subject to much debate and consequently a number of schools of thought have developed as to the origins of the Cold War. These proposed explanations to the causes of the Cold War have consisted of the orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist theories. Each theory demonstrates a different viewpoint as to how a variety of political, economic and militaristic factors instigated the Cold War
The Cold War was the political, social, economic and militaristic struggle between communism and capitalist participated in primarily by the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist USA and their respective allies from approximately 1947 to 1991. The Cold War was labelled “cold” as an armed conflict never eventuated, as opposed to a “hot” war, which entails a conventional war with actual armed fighting. The Cold War was instead contested through proxy wars, trade embargoes, espionage, propaganda and a prolific arms race, which constituted an immense build-up of nuclear weapons.
The Orthodox Explanation is a theory on the origin of the Cold War, which places the causes of the war on Soviet Union foreign policy and the inability of their respective ideologies to co-exist. After World War II, the Soviet Union greatly expanded its sphere of political influence in Eastern Europe by imposing communist governments in all but one of the country’s bordering its western frontier. Vojtech Mastny stated it was this imperialistic drive, which instigated the Cold War -“…the first shot fired of the Cold War was the Soviet Unions drive to impose friendly governments in locations of geopolitical importance….” The USSR was building an empire...
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...oviet Union gained possession of the atomic bomb in 1949, the universally recognized notion of mutual assured destruction meant that the Soviet’s and the US had to rely on economic competition, hence the atomic bomb is seen as a major cause of the Cold War in the Post-Revisionist explanation.
It is clear there that each theory to the origins of the Cold War-the orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist- are very different and in fact conflicting explanations to the causes and development of the Cold War. The post-revisionist theory attempts to integrate the two previous theories and find middle ground, however it confines the causes of the conflict to a number of specific factors when in fact to gain a clear understanding of the origins, one must see it as progression of wide spectrum of political, economic and militaristic factors over a large period of time.
Historiography of the Origins of the Cold War There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historians. So wide
Following World War II, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union grew out of political, cultural and economic differences. The former allies found themselves in competition for power, land and nuclear arms. Known as the Cold War, this period provoked an anti- communist hysteria in America. The fear of a communist takeover in the United States ignited Americans to support a “witch-hunt” in which several American citizens were summoned to court over their political beliefs. The film
Cheng’s book Citizens of Asian America, Cheng discusses how racially-restrictive housing was causing problems for the United States’ foreign policy. The time period of the events discussed in the piece was the 1950’s and 1960’s, which was during the Cold War. The exclusionary government policy of racially-restrictive housing made foreign relations with other countries and particularly Asian country more difficult due to the nature of the policy not being inclusionary. The United States government was
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that had been to war and is now returning home. Throughout the story, the main character, Harold, is struggling significantly to re-adapt his lifestyle from what he was before leaving for the war, and what he is as he returns from the war. Harold repeatedly compares the lifestyle of people in his society, in America, to the lifestyles of people in Germany and France. The complications that Harold struggles with every day, are the same struggles that soldiers returning from the war still face today
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Throughout our lives, our bodies experience stress. Whether it is getting up in the morning after staying up late or learning of the death of a loved one, stress is a part of our everyday routine. Scientists have conducted many studies examining different stressors and the effects it has on the human body. Our body has subconsciously developed its own ways for dealing with the stressors in our lives. Stress is a daily occurrence, yet sometimes the body struggles to cope with it properly and becomes
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