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Diplomacy & Statecraft

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S. R. Dockrill & G. Hughes (Eds.),

Palgrave Advances in Cold War History
a
Ann Lane
a
Kings College London , London, UK
Published online: 05 Aug 2009.

To cite this article: Ann Lane (2009) S. R. Dockrill & G. Hughes (Eds.), Palgrave Advances in Cold War
History , Diplomacy & Statecraft, 20:2, 364-365, DOI: 10.1080/09592290902907627

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 Diplomacy & Statecraft, 20:364–365, 2009
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0959-2296 print/1557-301X online
DOI: 10.1080/09592290902907627

Book Review
Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 20, No. 2, May 2009: pp. 1–4
1557-301X
0959-2296
FDPS

Book Review

Dockrill, S. R. & Hughes, G. (Eds.), (2006). Palgrave Advances in Cold War

History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 320 pp., $97.00, £64.00
(hard cover), $32.00, £20.99 (paperback).
This volume of ten essays edited by Saki Dockrill and Geraint Hughes
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appears in a series which seeks among other things to survey and advance
the boundaries of the discipline in question. It is singularly appropriate
therefore that the chapters it contains show the historiography of the Cold
War to be multidimensional, multi-archival and multifaceted. The Cold War
developed owing to ideological conflict. The imperative of limiting confron-
tation between two radically differing conceptions of societal organisation
has proven both highly pervasive and enduring, not least in the institutional
structures that order the twenty-first century world. While it was still ongoing
the approaches adopted by its historians tended to reflect these issues. Sub-
sequently, however, scholarship has shown markedly divergent tendencies
owing to the proliferation of archival opportunities and the cross-pollination
among various disciplines of study. A sense of the richness and variety that
these developments have brought to the study of the Cold War can be
absorbed from the pages of this book. Dockrill and Hughes have drawn
together an eclectic group of scholars who collectively convey the strength
and depth of the present state of cold war history by exploring the histori-
ography of the subject through a series of issues which have been informed
by the most contemporary research agendas.
The difficulty of addressing the Cold War in this way is evident in the
editors’ own search in the introduction for a coherent conceptualisation of
the conflict. Two definitions appear, the first reflects the influence of the
most recent international crisis, and holds that the Cold War represented
“the major theatre for the West’s struggle against communist ideas and
about regime change in, and the democratisation of, the communist bloc”
(p. 1). Certainly the Cold War became so in the 1980s iteration of contain-
ment strategy although the evidence for arguing this in the context of earlier
decades is more circumstantial. The second view to which our attention is
drawn portrays the Cold War as “a credible but ultimately failed Soviet
challenge to US hegemony” (p. 4). Indeed the historiography of the Cold
War remains curious for the inability of scholars to agree even now on a
chronological scope of the subject, on who started it or in some cases even

364
 Book Review 365

where it started. For the present purposes it is the difficulties of conceptualising

the conflict itself which have the effect of ultimately frustrating the editors in
their efforts to impose coherence on the volume as a whole. Nevertheless,
the volume that emerges comprises a fascinating series of essays ranging
from the more conceptual discussions by Wolfgang Krieger and Jussi
Hanhimaki who examine the international “system” in the Cold War, and
the ongoing relevance of national security and national interest (as distinct
from the realism) as key concepts in exploring cold war history, to the
analyses of the formal institutionalisation of cold war relations through the
alliance structures by Lawrence Kaplan and a discussion of strategy by
Lawrence Freedman and Geraint Hughes to the discussion of the role of
ideology by Leopoldi Nuti and Vladislav Zubok and the post-cold war interest
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in the cultural dimension which is explored by Patrick Major and Rana

Mitter. Ian Jackson examines the often neglected economic dimension to
cold war history, while John Kent tackles the consequences for key parts of
the developing world of the interrelationship between the Cold War and
decolonisation. There is a chapter by Richard Aldrich which focuses on the
historiography of the role of intelligence in the Cold War and is particularly
successful in conveying the ongoing frustration of scholars in this field with
the inevitably partial information with which they must work. Among the
most rewarding is the chapter by Christopher Bluth which examines
the military dimension through the scientific and technological advances
made by both sides during this period.
While it is impossible to do justice to the individual contributions in a
volume of this kind these essays capture the sense of development in the
study of cold war history as a whole and more particularly provide a helpful
overview of the ways in which it has diverged since the late 1980s from its
formative preoccupations with the struggle in the foreign policies of the
major actors between ideas and more traditional considerations into a much
broader debate about dynamics of sustained ideological conflict between
the most powerful nations and the impact of these on the world in general.
It would have been useful to have included a chapter discussing the impact
of the conflict on social trends and the breakdown of the political consen-
sus in the West, and another examining neutralism as a foreign policy
choice both in Europe and more especially beyond. The volume might also
have benefited from inclusion of a concluding chapter identifying areas for
further research and the legacies of the Cold War which are perhaps the
principal source of the subject’s enduring relevance. Nevertheless, this is an
imaginatively conceived and rewarding volume which should be widely
read by those with interests in this area.

Ann Lane
Kings College London
London, UK