Rethinking Theory and History in the Cold War: The State, Military Power and Social Revolution

ISBN-13: 9780714682266 / Angielski / Miękka / 2001 / 256 str.

Richard Saull; Fred Halliday

Opis

This work provides a critique of existing understandings of the Cold War prevalent in international relations, and offers an alternative perspective on the Cold War founded on a historical materialist approach. The focus of the text's argument is an analysis of what we mean by politics and international relations and how such assumptions have come to determine our understanding of the Cold War. The author focuses on the relationship between state and society. Viewed from this perspective, the state and modern conceptions of politics can be seen as products of a capitalist modernity, in which politics is based on the separation of the spheres of politics in the state and economics in civil society. What follows from this is that the politics and international relations of the USA and USSR were based on a different domestic constitution of politics. The text develops this argument by discussing the nature of the state, military power and social revolution.

Spis treści

Introduction - what was the Cold War?; the Cold War and international relations theory - realism and the Cold War, pluralist and ideas-based approaches to the Cold War, historical materialist approaches to the Cold War. Part 1 Theory: the politics of the state in the Cold War - realism, the state and the Cold War in international relations theory, reconstructing a politics of the state in the Cold War, conclusion - the real politics of the Cold War; military power and strategic conflict in the Cold War - military power in the Cold War, geopolitical determinants of military power in the Cold War, domestic determinants of military power in the Cold War, social relations of military power in the Cold War, conclusions; social revolution and the Cold War - non-Marxist approaches to social revolution and the Cold War, Marxist approaches to social revolution in the Cold War, social revolution as the dynamic of the Cold War, revolutionary consequences of capitalist development, conclusions - the Cold War as social revolution. Part 2 History: the international relations of the USSR in the Cold War - the international relations of the USSR and social revolution, Cuba, Vietnam, conclusions; the international relations of the United States in the Cold War - the international relations of the United States and social revolution, Cuba, Vietnam, conclusions; conclusion - understanding the Cold War and its end - politics and the state, military power as a currency of politics, capitalism and revolutionary social transformation, the ends of the Cold War.

O autorze

Richard Saull