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The Human Factor

Autor Archie Brown
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 31 mar 2020
What brought about an end to the Cold War has long been a subject of speculation and mythology. One prominent argument is that the United States simply bankrupted the Soviet Union, outspending the Soviets on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or "Star Wars") and forcing a reckoning. Archie Brown's latest work rejects any simple answers. The Human Factor focuses on the human element, and in particular on the main figures involved--Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher. His book looks at them both as individuals and as engaged in a dynamic that between 1985, when Gorbachev came to power and 1989, when Reagan left office, brought about not only an easing of East-West tensions but a great deal more. Brown argues that the Cold War ended at an ideological level with Mikhail Gorbachev's speech at the United Nations in December 1988, when he announced that the people of every country had the right to choose their own government. The Cold War ended on the ground when the peoples of Eastern Europe took Gorbachev at his word in 1989 and Soviet troops were ordered to stay in their barracks. The standard narrative of the end of the Cold War--that it was won by the threat of Western (especially American) military power and spending--has underpinned support for the use of force in the Middle East (including the invasion of Iraq in 2003), the expansion of NATO, and advocacy of a hard line toward contemporary Russia. On the other side of the divide, the view that the United States set out to break up the Soviet Union and undermine Russia is widely accepted in Russia today and has led to a hardening of both domestic and foreign policy. Vladimir Putin's high popularity ratings owe much to his being perceived as the leader who restored Russian pride and great power status. Brown ultimately confronts standard, monocausal explanations for the end of the Cold War and does so by offering a nuanced and deeply personal account of the three individuals most responsible for bringing it about.
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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780190614898
ISBN-10: 0190614897
Pagini: 512
Dimensiuni: 157 x 236 x 38 mm
Greutate: 0.86 kg
Editura: Oxford University Press, USA

Notă biografică


Archie Brown is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford

Descriere

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How the Cold War ended - and the people who made it happenIn this penetrating analysis of the role of political leadership in the Cold War's ending, Archie Brown shows why the popular view that Western economic and military strength left the Soviet Union with no alternative but to admit defeat is wrong. To understand the significance of the parts played by Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in East-West relations in the second half of the 1980s, Brown addresses several specific questions: What were the values and assumptions of these leaders, and how did their perceptions evolve? What were the major influences on them? To what extent were they reflecting the views of their own political establishment or challenging them? How important for ending the East-West standoff were their interrelations? Would any of the realistically alternative leaders of their countries at that time have pursued approximately the same policies? The Cold War got colder in the early 1980s and the relationship between the two military superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, each of whom had the capacity to annihilate the other, was tense. By the end of the decade, East-West relations had been utterly transformed, with most of the dividing lines -including the division of Europe- removed. Engagement between Gorbachev and Reagan was a crucial part of that process of change. More surprising was Thatcher's role. Regarded by Reagan as his ideological and political soulmate, she formed also a strong and supportive relationship with Gorbachev (beginning three months before he came to power). Promoting Gorbachev in Washington as a man to do business with, she became, in the words of her foreign policy adviser Sir Percy Cradock, an agent of influence in both directions.

Recenzii

The Human Factoris in many respects the culmination of Archie Brown's long and distinguished career as a scholar and writer. It is full of a lifetime's achievement of wisdom and thought.
Brown's book is a superb achievement, a balanced, judicious and authoritative account of a foundation event of our contemporary world
A fascinating and instructive read ... Everybody will learn something from this first-class book.
A masterly survey of the end of the cold war and the roles played in it by Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Lucidly written and scholarly.
Brown's study is a major contribution to our understanding of the end of the Cold War: scholarly yet very readable and full of memorable anecdotes about the three leaders. He shows that what Gorbachev called the human factor allowed trust to grow between the former adversaries, creating a unique opportunity for peace at a time when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
written with acute panache and a kinetic knowledge that spans the subject matters entire era (and then some).
In The Human Factor, Brown zooms out from analyzing Soviet decision-making and asks a broader question about why the Cold War ended. Scholars have proposed multiple explanations for the Cold War's end... but Brown encourages readers to focus on the personalities at the top of both the Soviet party-state and Western governments.
It is often a challenge for historians to find the right balance between the human factor and the historical forces at play. The value of Archie Brown's study [...] is that it does precisely that.
...a thought-provoking book...I highly recommend this book to readers. Brown is right to highlight the human factor in the ending of the Cold War...the sharpness of many of Browns insights, condensed with commendable crispness in this 500-page [make the book an], eminently readable foray into a highly contentious subject.
What The Human Factor does do, and does so well, is provide a fascinating new perspective on already well-trodden ground.
Brown devotes several fine-grained biographical chapters to the "making" of Gorbachev, the "rise" of Reagan, and the "moulding" of the "Iron Lady", and then traces the three leaders interactions... The result is a compelling picture of what led [them] to act as they did and how the difference each one made differed from the impact of the others.
... magisterial work... based on a wealth of sources in Russian and English... The Human Factor is as much a fine work of foreign policy analysis as it is Cold War history... a fascinating, close-structured narrative.
The Human Factor makes a major contribution to scholarship and policy analysis. Brown is the leading Western authority on Soviet politics in the late Soviet era ... a shrewd analyst and indefatigable researcher... Archie Brown's outstanding book shows how the unanticipated end of the Cold War came to pass.
The book is crammed with information, is well-written, and shows that Brown has a dry sense of humour.
Here and elsewhere, as he once did for the leaders about whom he now writes, Archie Brown's scholarship can provide wisdom and hope.
Another tour de force from Archie Brown: detailed scholarship, elegant prose and a clear argument. Read this book to find why we should not ignore the human factor underpinning great historical shifts. A fascinating account of how the Cold War ended, explored through the personal interactions between three world leaders - Gorbachev, Reagan and Thatcher.