Reflections on the Cold War: A comment

For mutually reinforcing cultural reasons, the study of international history at American universities has declined. Nevertheless, opportunities for multinational research on the Cold War are greater than ever. Much innovative work takes place abroad or outside conventional history departments. This article appraises the contributions of three leading scholars in the field. It adumbrates the failure of the Roosevelt administration to formulate a coherent policy for postwar Germany and emphasizes the fitful process through which the Truman team despaired of accommodation with the USSR. It intimates that Marc Trachtenberg's elegant structural analysis may make that process seem clearer than the truth, and underscores the findings of Klaus Schwabe and Georges Soutou, who show that Europeans had their own concerns and did not view the Cold War through the optic of the bilateral Russian-American relationship.