In the United States the Cold War shaped our political culture, our institutions, and our national priorities. Abroad, it influenced the destinies of people everywhere. It divided Europe, split Germany, and engulfed the Third World. It led to a fever... Read more

In the United States the Cold War shaped our political culture, our institutions, and our national priorities. Abroad, it influenced the destinies of people everywhere. It divided Europe, split Germany, and engulfed the Third World. It led to a feverish arms race and massive sales of military equipment to poor nations. For at least four decades it left the world in a chronic state of tension where a miscalculation could trigger nuclear holocaust.Documents, oral histories, and memoirs illuminating the goals, motives, and fears of contemporary U.S. officials were already widely circulated and studied during the Cold War, but in the 1970s a massive declassification of documents from the Army, Navy, Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department of Defense, and some intelligence agencies reinvigorated historical study of this war which became the definitive conflict of its time. While many historians used these records to explore specialized topics, Melvyn Leffler marshals in this book the considerable available evidence to offer an overall analysis of national security policy during the Truman years and a comprehensive history of that administration's progressive embroilment in the Cold War.A Preponderance of Power won the 1992 Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize sponsored by The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the 1992 Herbert Hoover Book Award sponsored by The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association and the 1993 Bancroft Prize sponsored by the Friends of the Columbia Libraries.Each generation, if it is lucky, is given a book that becomes standard for one of the turning-point eras in American history. The immediate post-1945 years certainly were such an era, and Leffler's work is such a book. Having exhausted the U.S. records, taken the globe as his province, and exploited the perspective of Communism's recent collapse, he has written the account from which others must move if they are to contribute to our further understanding of these origins of the cold war. -- Walter LaFeber, Noll Professor of History, Cornell UniversityThis is a magnificent book. It transcends forty years of historical writing about the origins of the cold war and the evolution of the Truman administration's policies. Scrupulously documented, it will inevitably become the intellectual fulcrum around which all discussions, arguments, and revisions of cold war historiography henceforth will turn. -- Martin J. Sherwin, Dickson Professor of History, Director of the Nuclear Age History and Humanities Center, Tufts UniversityThis bold, persuasive book puts the self-conscious expansion of U.S. power where it belongs -- at the center of cold war tensions. Leffler effectively establishes that the 'wise men' had a coherent world view, devised a grand strategy to satisfy it, and extended U.S. power abroad to meet threats they exaggerated. A gem of a book. -- Thomas G. Paterson, Professor of History, University of ConnecticutLeffler's panoramic survey of global developments offers an important reassessment of American policy in the early cold war -- one that sees American policy driven as much by an expansive definition of national security as by the threat of Soviet imperialism. As the cold war comes to an end, Leffler presents a fresh appraisal of its origins. -- Michael J. Hogan, Professor of History, Ohio State University, Editor, Diplomatic HistoryMagisterial... This book is without question a major achievement. It is a masterly work of synthesis, weaving together in a single coherent study the various and often contradictory trends in previous historical writing on the Cold War's origins. It is indefatigably researched... and most important, it is an intellectually honest work... A fine book. -- The AtlanticA brilliant new book... An invaluable contribution. -- The Nation[A Preponderance of Power] remains today [November 2013] the (so-far) definitive history of US behavior in the Cold War -- Eric Alterman, The NationThe best book to date on the Truman administration and the origins of the Cold War. -- Detroit Free PressA monumental work, rich in information and insights. -- R.C. Grogin, Canadian Journal of HistoryThis massive distillation of the perceptions and policy prescriptions of the national security establishment of the Truman years... is policy history based on years of exhaustive research in government archives and private papers... Leffler's judgment on Truman's men and their work is favorable: they were sometimes very wise, nearly always prudent... and foolish primarily in overvaluing the strategic importance of peripheral areas. -- Gaddis Smith, Foreign AffairsMassive, brilliant post-glasnost analysis of early cold-war realities... This study of how Truman dealt with a world sealed off to him by FDR is a book and a half. -- Kirkus Less