Quick questions on Cold War historiography: orthodox, revisionist, post-revisionist

The orthodox or "traditionalist" interpretation of the Cold War's origins emerged with the events themselves. It was the State Department's account, articulated in the Long Telegram (Kennan, February 1946), the X Article ("The Sources of Soviet Conduct," July 1947), and Truman's public rhetoric.

The revisionist account challenged the orthodox view from the late 1950s, gathered force during Vietnam, and dominated the 1970s academy in the United States.

The post-revisionist synthesis emerged in the late 1970s and dominated by the 1980s. The label is John Lewis Gaddis's ("The Emerging Post-Revisionist Synthesis on the Origins of the Cold War," Diplomatic History, 1983).

The opening of Soviet, East European, and Chinese archives after 1991 transformed Cold War history. The Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Centre (founded 1991) published translated documents from the East.

Origins: orthodox (Stalin), revisionist (Truman and economic interests), post-revisionist (structural).

NESA markers reward historiography integrated into argument, not appended in a paragraph. Three habits:

Taylor wrote on 1939; the Cold War schools are distinct.

Orthodox blames Stalin; revisionist blames the United States; post-revisionist blames structure; post-archive returns weight to Stalin.

Early Gaddis (1972, 1982) is post-revisionist; later Gaddis (1997, 2005) is post-archive. The shift is significant.