The Cold War

A New History

By: John Lewis Gaddis

Narrated by: Jay Gregory, Alan Sklar

Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

It began during World War II, when American and Soviet troops converged from East and West. Their meeting point, a small German city, became part of a front line that solidified shortly thereafter into an Iron Curtain. It ended in a climactic square-off between Ronald Reagan's America and Gorbachev's Soviet Union. In between were decades of global confrontation, uncertainty, and fear.

Drawing on new and often startling information from newly opened Soviet, Eastern European, and Chinese archives, this thrilling account explores the strategic dynamics that drove the Cold War, provides illuminating portraits of its major personalities, and offers much fresh insight into its most crucial events. Riveting, revelatory, and wise, it tells a story whose lessons it is vitally necessary to understand as America once more faces an implacable ideological enemy.

©2006 John Lewis Gaddis (P)2013 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"Thrilling....An utterly engrossing account of Soviet-U.S. relations from WWII to the collapse of the U.S.S.R....A new, concise narration was Gaddis's aim here, and he succeeds royally." ( Publishers Weekly)

Gripping explanation of the Cold War, start to end

What did you love best about The Cold War?

This is a must read for those interested in how the West and the USSR, partners during WWII, turned into bitter rivals. Gaddis does a masterful job in painting the closing days of the second world war into the first salvos of what would later become the Cold War. He then thoroughly analyzes many important periods of the era, including the nuclear building, confrontation over Berlin, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, the election of Reagan.

Poorly Formatted, Monotone Reader

This is one of Gaddis' best Cold War books because it's more reader-friendly and offers more insight into the world, overall, than some other authors. That being said, this is the most boring reader imaginable. Because it's a history text, it already airs on the dry side, but the reader just makes it worse. My primary issue with this book is the formatting. The chapters of the audiobook don't line up to the chapters in the physical book and you have to scrub through the chapters to find the starting point, which is especially annoying if you've read some of the book but want to continue reading with audio or want to pick up where you left off.

This is a nice resource if you need help getting through the book, but if you want to get this book for fun, **because it is a tremendously informative and engaging read**, but I would say get the physical book and ignore this audiobook. :/ Your inner reading-voice is likely MUCH more engaging than this reader.

great work!

very well presented and researched. great value for the time and money it costs to get through it.

A Summary of Major Cold War Events

The author says in his preface that this book does not contain any original scholarship and that it is designed for those with no memory and very little knowledge of the Cold War, so I probably shouldn't complain that it is so simple and basic. But I am old enough to have lived through the later years of the Cold War and while I am no historian, I do have an interest in history. There was literally nothing in this book I did not already know -- and on most topics I know far more than was in this short book. It is a brief summary of major Cold War events for beginners, and should appeal to such persons. I do have one big criticism, however, which is that the author seems to regard Ronald Reagan as some sort of genius who single-handedly ended the Cold War, while Gorbachev is dismissed as if he were a simpleton. This is far too simple-minded a view of the end of the Cold War.

The narrator has a nice voice, and did a nice job of holding my interest.

Good Overall but through rose-colored glasses

This is an engaging and well written narrative of the cold war era in world history. Much emphasis is given to the world leaders, at the expense of everyday people's experiences. There is a chummy tone that crops up occasionally, revealing a strong Pro-Capitalism Pro-Reagan-Thatcher bias of the author. It concludes on such a high note in 1992, you might almost assume we entered a world of peace, utopia and Democratic Capitalism at that point. However I would recommend The Long Hangover as a sobering follow-up book.

A good start for learning about the Cold War

For someone like me who doesn't know much about the cold war beyond the broad strokes, this was a good read to get into more of the nitty gritty details of the events that unfolded in that time.

Politically biased

Good introductory book that goes through major events in Cold War. However it is definitely strongly biased, pro-Reagan, pro-Nixon, and a bunch of others. This gets especially obvious when you get to chapter 6 talking about(and subtly approving) government using espionage over citizens, or messing with foreign election. Could be a bit hard to listen to if you disagree politically. Author is strongly opinionated and interprets events according to his political view, so listen to this book with your own good judgement and don’t take this as cold factual history.

Not a Chronological History

John Lewis Gaddis in The Cold War approaches the Cold War from a number of different perspectives. Each is covered in one of seven chapters and an Epilogue. The most valuable to me were the last chapter “The Triumph of Hope” in which the Berlin Wall falls and the “Epilogue: The View Back” in which he summarizes what the Cold War meant. Individuals looking for a chronological history will not find it here, but the book is insightful and engrossing nonetheless. There are surprises even for those of old enough to have lived through the entire era. I particularly found the sections concerning Eisenhower’s misleading the public initially about Gary Powers and the U-2 interesting. Gaddis follows this theme of dishonesty through the Bay of Pigs and even Nixon’s fiasco. His explanation for FDR’s New Deal in geo-political context is interesting. Along the way, I felt that Gaddis treated every play (Republican and Democrat) in a balanced manner. This is a very good book and worthy of anyone willing to devote the time to it. The reading of Jay Gregory and Alan Sklar is excellent

A Captivating Way Of Telling History

I really enjoyed listening to this audio book, in particular the way that the author (and narrator) had a compelling way of telling history and making it fascinating. I'm just over 50 years of age, so when so much of the Cold War and other historical events of the time were going on, I like most young people, had very little interest in the events of the day....especially since so much of it was being shoved down my throat in school. I wish I had audible books back then, I just might have been a straight A student! (<:

Very good

This is a very nice book. You need some technical knowledge of how nuclear power plants work to understand the chapter where it talks about the technicalities of the accident, but otherwise it's a very pleasant read. I recommend.