Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, associate professor at Claremont McKenna College, and Lee Edwards, distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the Heritage Foundation, set out to correctly organize the ideologies and the historic events that together made up the crucial American conflict know as the Cold War. Spalding and Lee joined the Federalist Radio Hour to discuss their new book, A Brief History of the Cold War.
“Often, especially in academic circles, that ideological piece is taken out and the role of communism and Soviet aggression and the expansion of the Cold War is not given due credit,” Spalding said.
They explained the roles of several key historical figures throughout the Cold War, including Reagan, Stalin, and McCarthy. “There is one thing [McCarthy] was serious about and that was communism,” Edwards said. “He was so obsessed with fighting communism that he would not listen to anybody.”
The authors provide insight into the implementation of the Truman Doctrine, containment, and Reagan’s philosophy of “they lose, we win.”
“But you get up to the 1987 period, and Reagan standing there at the Berlin Wall, at the Brandenburg Gate saying ‘tear down this wall,’ is a moment in all of history, not just Cold War history,” Spalding said.
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