The Cold War in Asia: The Elusive Synthesis

Abstract

The main body of the text that follows appeared in the Summer 1988 issue of Diplomatic History. It offers a summary and critique of the scholarly literature pertaining to the Cold War in Asia, concentrating on that work published between 1980 and 1987. A substantial number of books and articles on U.S.-Asian relations during the Cold War era has been written in the intervening eight years, of course, some of which have pushed the temporal and conceptual boundaries of the field in exciting, new directions. Consequently, I have added a postscript to the original essay, in which I examine the larger themes and issues engaged by the more recent scholarship on the Cold War in Asia. Among other matters, I seek in the postscript to reexamine my own earlier conclusions about the state of the field.