Cold War History between Revision and New Insights, and their Consequences for Military History

Abstract

This overview of the academic literature on the Cold War argues that current historiography is characterised by a combination of classical historical approaches and political science methodology. Military history alone cannot explain the phenomenon; it has to reach out into political, economic, and ideological fields. Towards the end of the Cold War, revisionist approaches blaming the West to a large extent for the international tension after 1945, seemed to gain ground, but after the opening of the former Eastern Bloc archives, they lost credibility. Recently, based on cultural history approaches, they appear to be gaining ground again. Recent historiography also looks at the rifts within the Communist world, both the tensions between states in the Soviet orbit, and at the role of Western Communist parties. In many ways, the crisis years of 1958–1962 emerge as the pivotal period of the Cold War (Berlin, Cuba, etc.). Finally, the way the origins of the Cold War are interpreted has a direct impact on how its eventual termination is explained. Was it due to cultural factors, to nato cohesion, or to German Ostpolitik?