Carmen Ganser Illinois State University

Written for a lay or undergraduate audience, Leffler's compelling text describes over three and a half decades of the relationship between the United States and Communist Russia. Rather than suggesting a Manichean world in which the U.S. was the noble party, Leffler instead examines the roles both powers played in shaping the world economy and the spheres of global politics.

Because of my youth, I've had the great fortune of not growing up in the anxious days of the Red Scare and its decades-long aftermath. However, vestiges of the Red Scare exist even today, embodied in and championed by some economically conservative individuals and groups. Situated in a university environment, I have found many people who disagree with the neo-liberal economic world-view, and I am one of them. There are alternatives to neo-liberalism, alternatives that more readily foster an equitable environment for all individuals, not just those who can afford it. Not so, says the conventional (and conservative) wisdom of United States since World War II. The U.S. fought virulently to maintain its economic power throughout the world, and thus successfully commanded hegemonic power over exploitable markets. Because of its economic policy (opening and possessing as many open world markets as possible), its foreign policy was shaped over the last half century on the belief that the Soviet Union could spread no further than its post-WWII borders. The U.S.'s policy was the containment of Soviet collectivism and Bolshevism and the spread of neo-liberal, free-market ideology.

However, the United States government knew that communism was incapable of spreading throughout the rest of the world. The disorganization within the Soviet government and the sapping of economic resources to keep up with the arms race inhibited the Marxist utopia from ever actualizing. Yet the U.S. proclaimed that a garrison state was necessary in order to maintain freedom and contain the Communist specter. We must not have free speech, we must not admit that unions are good, that equality is good, that expressing interest in worker-owned factories is good, or else we would lose our jobs and never find another. One need not look very far to see that we do not like to learn from our history, that we could trade the name "terrorism" for "communism" and find just as many enemies within our borders as we did during the McCarthy era. It is hard to find an end to the frightening times when certain rhetoric becomes recuperated for new causes. It is important that undergraduates read and critically engage this book, for its rigorously defended thesis can help them interrogate the often troubling beliefs still prevalent in our culture.

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