This brilliant study -- Gaddis' fifth book on the Cold War -- provides an exhaustive and ever-quizzical approach to the early years of the superpower conflict. Gaddis has a knack for asking large and interesting questions, and he brings a lively style to his answers. Despite the promise of startling revelations from newly opened archives, what "we now know" turns out to bear an uncanny resemblance to what we thought then; never has "post-revisionism" seemed so indistinguishable from the original orthodoxy.
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In late 1999 when Vladimir Putin was named Prime Minister, Russia was a budding democracy. Multiple parties campaigned for seats in the Duma, the nation's parliament. The media criticized the government freely. Eight years later as Putin completes his second term as president of Russia and announces his bid for prime minister, the country is under a repressive regime. Human rights abuses are widespread. The Kremlin is openly hostile to the West. Yet the United States and Europe have been slow to confront the new reality, in effect, helping Russia win what experts are now calling the New Cold War.