Confronting the Dream World

In The Cold War: A Concise History, Charles Burton Marshall has formulated some basic political propositions in the natural language. This is a formidable enterprise because it requires exclusion of the “terms- of-the-art” and the irrelevant evidence that have become a commonplace of scholarly discourse. The merit of the venture may be suggested by 1) Heisenberg’s dictum, “Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached,” and 2) Wittgenstein’s maxim, “If a sign is not necessary, it is meaningless.” On both counts, The Cold War is a success. It is as lucidly written as it is lean and economical. It has a good index, clear maps and—no footnotes.

The book is in four parts: 1) the rise of the nation-state system concurrently with world exploration, colonization, and empire, down to the present confrontation between two powers that Tocqueville foresaw well over a century ago; 2) the slow and painful awakening of the United States to its responsibilities after World War II; 3) the nature and purpose of Communist states; and 4) the persisting conditions of the Cold War.

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In The Cold War: A Concise History, Charles Burton Marshall has formulated some basic political propositions in the natural language. This is a formidable enterprise because it requires exclusion of the “terms- of-the-art” and the irrelevant evidence that have become a commonplace of scholarly discourse. The merit of the venture may be suggested by 1) Heisenberg’s dictum, “Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached,” and 2) Wittgenstein’s maxim, “If a sign is not necessary, it is meaningless.” On both counts, The Cold War is a success. It is as lucidly written as it is lean and economical. It has a good index, clear maps and—no footnotes.

The book is in four parts: 1) the rise of the nation-state system concurrently with world exploration, colonization, and empire, down to the present confrontation between two powers that Tocqueville foresaw well over a century ago; 2) the slow and painful awakening of the United States to its responsibilities after World War II; 3) the nature and purpose of Communist states; and 4) the persisting conditions of the Cold War.