Cold War Insecurities

Cold War Insecurities

Mastny, Vojtech. The _Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years. New York: Oxford University Press 1996 _ Mastny explains that he had a desire to find out more about Soviet insecurities gave him the initial drive to write this book, also as a sequel to his other book, Russia’s Road To Cold War. The book starts with the clear explanation of his research, Mastny at the time of writing this book, he was teaching at Boston University, which leads him to his research in U. S. libraries and archives, he also states that the university archives for International Relations generously supported. He also visited the Federal Institute for East Europe, the International Studies in Cologne and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Wassenaar, Mastny explains himself to have been a visiting fellow and these places offered him a stimulating intellectual environment and excellent working conditions, thus allowing this book to move further. Mastny also explains that the book would have been completed quicker if only he wasn’t distracted by all of what was going on around him, or as he stated “I was distracted by too many other worthwhile projects as the Cold War was coming to an end.” (p.5) Interestingly enough while writing this book, Mastny, received a Fullbright professorship at the University of Bonn, and also received an invitation to join the faculty of the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University enabled him to witness firsthand the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the raising of the Russian flag over the Kremlin where the old soviet flag once stood, these happenings had a definite imprint on the book. In reading The Cold War, I immediately notice Mastny’s strong dislike for Stalin. This book basically highlights his failures and places the blame on Stalin, which in my opinion isn’t completely true. Mastny’s main point in the book was the fact that the Soviet threat wasn’t truly a threat at all to the U.S. and...

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