The Great Transition
American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War
Description:... The decade from 1981 through 1991 saw the remarkable transition from a renewed U.S. confrontation with the Soviet Union to the end of communist rule and the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. This turning point is now history, history that is the foundation for what has been occurring between the United States and Russia and for what will evolve. In this book, one of America's foremost specialists on Soviet affairs provides a major contribution to our understanding of U.S.-Soviet relations. Raymond L. Garthoff picks up this story from his earlier account of the rise and fall of the detente of the 1970s. Covering the period of 1969 through 1980, Detente and Confrontation (first published by Brookings in 1985) studied American policy toward the Soviet Union under the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations, and Soviet policy toward the United States. This new book turns to the final chapter of American relations with the Soviet Union in the succeeding decade, 1981-1991, bringing to an end both the final period of American-Soviet relations and the story of the Cold War. The Great Transition features a detailed account of relations during the Reagan and Bush administrations and the Soviet leadership from the end of Brezhnev's rule through the revolutionary transformation of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Through his unusual access to many formerly secret Soviet documents, declassified American documents, and interviews with key American and Soviet officials, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Garthoff provides a rare, authoritative analysis of recent events. He examines the turn from renewed confrontation in the early 1980s to a new detente in the late 1980s in the interaction of theUnited States and the Soviet Union. The interrelationships of domestic factors and foreign and security policies in both countries are examined, as are the involvements of both powers with other countries around the world that infringed on their direct relationship. Garthoff analyzes political, ideological, economic, and security dimensions from both the American and Soviet perspectives. He offers an essential understanding of the Cold War and the final period of American-Soviet relations that should assist current and future leaders in building a more stable long-term relationship between the United States and Russia.
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