The Soul For The Menkind

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From: "H-Diplo [Ball]" <h-diplo@MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU>
List Editor: "H-Diplo [Ball]" <h-diplo@MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Editor's Subject: H-DiploRoundtable Review on _For the Soul of Mankind_ [Suri]
Author's Subject: H-Diplo Roundtable Review on _For the Soul of Mankind_ [Suri]
Date Written: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:12:07 -0500
Date Posted: Sat, 22 Feb 2008 13:12:07 -0500 |
H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews
www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/#vol9no4
Volume IX, No. 4 (2008)
22 February2008

Melvyn P. Leffler. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the
Soviet Union, and the Cold War. New York: Hill and Wang, September
2007. 608 pp. ISBN: 0-8090-9717-6 (hardcover, $35). ISBN:
0-374-53142-0 (paperback, $17).

Roundtable Editor: Thomas MadduxReviewers: John L. Harper, Geir Lundestad, Elizabeth Spalding, Jeremi Suri

Copyright(c)2008 H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review by Jeremi Suri, Professor of History, University ofWisconsin-Madison

The Cold War, Melvyn Leffler writes in his superb new book, "is about
men and their ideas and their fears and their hopes." "[O]fficials in
Washington and Moscow," Leffler argues, "intermittently grasped the
consequences of the Cold War, glimpsed the possibilities of détente, and
yearned forpeace, but they could not escape their fears or relinquish
their dreams. Around the globe peoples were struggling to define their
future and disputing the benefits of alternative ways of life, so the
Cold War was indeed a struggle for the soul of mankind" (p. 8).

Leffler's prior work-especially his prize-winningbook, A Preponderance
of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold
War-set the standard for analyzing the intersection of threat
perception, political economy, and military power in the postwar world.
He famously described the combination of prudence and foolishness that
led Americanleaders to seek global preponderance after the Second World
War: "It meant creating a world environment hospitable to U.S.
interests and values; it meant developing the capabilities to overcome
threats and challenges; it meant mobilizing the strength to reduce
Soviet influence on its periphery; it meant undermining the appeal ofcommunism; it meant fashioning the institutional techniques and
mechanisms to manage the free world; and it meant establishing a
configuration of power and a military posture so that if war erupted,
the United States would prevail. If adversaries saw the handwriting on
the wall, they would defer to American wishes."1From a coherent strategy of "preponderance" to a "struggle for the soul
of mankind," Leffler traces a number of cogent themes. First, he points
to the profound insecurities that dominated American and Soviet
thinking. American leaders, especially President Harry Truman, feared
the growth of...