An Example of a Comparative Review World History
Study this example to help with writing your comparative review essay. It is not intended to represent a perfect model, nor must your review match its structure or approach. From: AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW (October 2008)
MELVYN P. LEFFLER. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007.
VLADISLAV M. ZUBOK. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
Cold War specialists had a very good year in 2007 with the publication of a number of fine books, including Melvyn P. Leffler’s assessment of significant case studies during the Cold War and Vladislav M. Zubok’s evaluation of Soviet Cold War policies from Joseph Stalin through Mikhail Gorbachev. Leffler’s and Zubok’s interpretations reflect the ebbing of the “Cold War” among historians that has continued long past the end of the conflict […] Their approaches are not identical, but they share a focus on leaders who made a significant impact and a thesis that the Cold War, in the most important sense, transcended strategic, economic, and domestic political considerations.
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Leffler’s and Zubok’s orientations are somewhat different. Leffler questions why Soviet and American leaders did not stop the Cold War before its final end and examines five case studies […] in each of these cases, Leffler examines policy makers on both sides and relies quite extensively for the Soviet side on primary source publications […] In contrast to Leffler, Zubok’s focus is more exclusively on Soviet policy leaders, and only at the end with Mikhail Gorbachev does he evaluate the impact of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush on Gorbachev’s [policies].
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Zubok does contribute a most important, additional element to Leffler’s case studies in advancing the “revolutionary-imperial paradigm” […] Zubok’s paradigm challenges Leffler’s assertion that his case studies represent “lost opportunities” to limit the conflict before it escalated in 1947-1948 or to reduce it after the death of Stalin in 1953.
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Leffler and Zubok highlight the efforts of Carter and Brezhnev to continue détente after 1976 […] Leffler points out Carter’s persistent effort to keep détente alive with Brezhnev, and Zubok emphasizes Brezhnev’s efforts to maintain détente in order to avoid the risks of war that Khrushchev had encouraged. In relying extensively on memoirs by and interviews with Brezhnev’s advisers, Zubok minimizes the overall destructive impact of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 on both détente and on the Soviet Union’s relationship with Eastern Europe.
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Leffler and Zubok give different emphases to the final stage of the conflict, the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the Soviet Union itself. Gorbachev is Leffler’s favorite Soviet leader, and he approves of Gorbachev’s unwillingness to defend communist regimes […] Zubok, however, criticizes Gorbachev for replacing the revolutionary-imperial paradigm with “new thinking,” a radical transformation of Soviet ideology and political and economic systems […] In short, Zubok endorses Stalin and Brezhnev as superior strategists and negotiators over Khrushchev and Gorbachev.
THOMAS R. MADDUX,
California State University, Northridge
Review questions:
1. Is the opening paragraph an effective introduction to the books and the main issues? Does it identify traits that are both common and unique to each source?
2. Are the topic sentences of each paragraph clear? Could any be improved?
3. Is there a proper balance between generalization and evidence?
4. To what extent is the final paragraph an effective conclusion? How might it be improved?
5. Do you think Maddux has been fair to the two authors? That is, do you think you have an accurate idea of the two books, or do you only know what Maddux thinks about them?
6. Which approach do you think Maddux favors?
