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Analysis Of John Lewis Gaddis's The Cold War

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Cold War studies have been strongly affected by the Cold War propaganda. Most of the sources on the field have decided to acquire a teleological approach, which has redefined the real perception of the facts happening at the time. Similarly, to an “happy ending” effect, where people know the good end of the story, historians have connected the facts happened at the end of WWI in order to create a logical unfolding of the divisions between the East and the West. This process has created a one side narration of the Cold War, that misses on different points a more pragmatic approach on the facts. The knowledge of the end of the story, misses the total obscurity and ignorance of the main actors. Even the most important book on Cold War, written by John Lewis Gaddis entitled The Cold War is a teleological discourse on the topic. This essay will bring one source from each side and analyze the narration of the story in order to provide a more balanced view of the events that led to the outbreak of the Cold War. Hence, the main …show more content…

While on the other side, there is an explanation of what happened before which led to the action. This does analysis does not make any approach les valuable, it is only a matter of perspective over a scenario of events. In fact, while Gaddis’s approach provides a common narrative to the events that can give a better explanation to the overall story, the less traditional scholars are able to fragment the story and give a case by case background of the events. However, assuming that the Cold War was written in the stones, on the one hand, it does not reflect the idea that the main players had completely no knowledge about their future; on the other hand, it is able to reconstruct what were the common origins of the outbreak of the conflict. Hence, a more pragmatic approach on the field can give a less general and more deep explanation of the

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