A constructed peace

Princeton University Press

1999

xv, 424 p.

Princeton studies in international history and politics

9780691001838

Pt. I: THE DIVISION OF EUROPE -- CHAPTER ONE: A Spheres of Influence Peace? -- CHAPTER TWO: Toward the Rubicon -- CHAPTER THREE: The Test of Strength -- Pt. II: THE NATO SYSTEM -- CHAPTER FOUR: The Making of the NATO System -- CHAPTER FIVE: Eisenhower and Nuclear Sharing -- CHAPTER SIX: An Alliance in Disarray -- Pt. III: THE COLD WAR PEACE -- CHAPTER SEVEN: The Politics of the Berlin Crisis, 1958-1960 -- CHAPTER EIGHT: Kennedy, NATO, and Berlin -- CHAPTER NINE: A Settlement Takes Shape

People still think of the Cold War as a simple two-sided conflict, a kind of gigantic arm wrestle on a global scale," writes Marc Trachtenberg, "but this view fails to grasp the essence of what was really going on." America and Russia were both willing to live with the status quo in Europe. What then could have generated the kind of conflict that might have led to a nuclear holocaust? This is the great puzzle of the Cold War, and in this book, the product of nearly twenty years of work, Trachtenberg tries to solve it.The answer, he says, has to do with the German question, especially with the German nuclear question. These issues lay at the heart of the Cold War, and a relatively stable peace took shape only when they were resolved. The book develops this argument by telling a story--a complex story involving many issues of detail, but focusing always on the central question of how a stable international system came into being during the Cold War period. A Constructed Peace will be of interest not just to students of the Cold War, but to people concerned with the problem of war and peace, and in particular with the question of how a stable international order can be constructed, even in our own day.

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