Reconstructing the Cold War

Ted Hopf uses a sophisticated and nuanced societal constructivist approach to illuminate Soviet understandings and motivations in the years of the Cold War. By combining discursive analysis with a serious investigation of institutions, he demonstrates that the Stalinist state discourse of capitalist danger to state socialism, which dominated in official views until Stalin's death in 1953, was replaced by an alternative discourse of difference that allowed for greater variety and tolerance within the socialist camp. Taking identities as fundamental to foreign policy, Hopf illustrates their profound effects on the choices made by the Soviet leaders. From his unique perspective, he is able to go beyond conventional neorealist accounts and lay out an original new approach to understanding the origins of the Cold War. This is a work that breaks through the impasses of old-style Sovietology and enlivens our debates and understanding.

Auteur
Ted Hopf is Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. He is the author or editor of five books, including Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign nPolicies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999 (Cornell 2002), which won the 2003 Marshall D. Shulman Award, presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for the best book published that year on the international politics of the former Soviet Union and Central Europe. Hopf received his B.A. from Princeton University in 1983 and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1989. He was a Fulbright Professor in the autumn of 2001 at the European University at St. Petersburg. His research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Olin and Davis Centers at Harvard University, and The Mershon Center at Ohio State University.

Texte du rabat

The early years of the Cold War were marked by contradictions and conflict. The turn from Stalin's discourse of danger to the discourse of difference under his successors explains the abrupt changes in relations with Eastern Europe, China, the decolonizing world, and the West. Societal constructivism provides the theoretical approach to make sense of this turbulent history

Contenu

• Preface

• Chapter One, Introduction

• Chapter Two, Stalinism after the War: A Discourse of Danger, 1945-53

• Chapter Three, Stalin's Foreign Policy: The Discourse of Danger Abroad, 1945-53

• Chapter Four, The Thaw at Home, 1953-58

• Chapter Five, The Thaw Abroad, 1953-58

• Chapter Six, Conclusions

• References