This book provides a comprehensive description and critique of the six most important historical interpretations of US Cold War foreign policy: traditionalism, revisionism, post-revisionism, corporatism, world systems theory, and post-structuralism. The book uses the ‘levels of analysis’ approach to demonstrate how each of these perspectives can be understood as an explanatory framework combining different types of factors located at different levels of the international system. This original way of explaining the work of the historians discussed helps the reader to see past the narrative and ... More

This book provides a comprehensive description and critique of the six most important historical interpretations of US Cold War foreign policy: traditionalism, revisionism, post-revisionism, corporatism, world systems theory, and post-structuralism. The book uses the ‘levels of analysis’ approach to demonstrate how each of these perspectives can be understood as an explanatory framework combining different types of factors located at different levels of the international system. This original way of explaining the work of the historians discussed helps the reader to see past the narrative and empirical elements of their writings and to grasp more clearly the underlying theoretical assumptions. In each chapter a description of the perspective's underlying theoretical framework and how it explains US foreign policy is followed by a critique of that theory and explanation. A central theme, developed throughout the book, is the difficulty of managing the constant tension between the explanatory power of theory and the historian's desire to encompass the complex totality of historical events. This critical companion can be read alongside the works of the historians themselves, showing how they have sought to explain US Cold War foreign policy and the key differences between their perspectives.