Step 2: Annotated Bibliography

By Alison Baillie

Cold War Thaws, The (1970-1993). AIMS Multimedia. 1996. unitedstreaming. 28 September 2006 http://www.unitedstreaming.com/

This video was about the American’s and the Cold War from 1970 to 1993. It covered how the relationship between the United States and the USSR fluctuated year to year throughout the Cold War. As well it covered all the US Presidents who were in power during 1970 to 1993 and what they did for the Cold War. It also mentioned how in 1975 the United States and the USSR orbited around the earth together without any arguments. The video also cover how the Cold War ended in the early 1990’s.

The company or organization who produced the video was AIMS Multimedia which is part of a web database called united streaming. The united streaming website is a database that consists of different videos from Discovery Education. I think that this is a scholarly video because it was from a reliable source and contained useful information on my topic.

I think that this video was a good source of information for my topic because it gave another view point to my research. It showed that through the years of the Cold War the United States and the USSR did try to manage together through the years.

Gaddis, John L. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.

This book was very interesting because it observes the United States and the USSR opinions on democracy, economics, alliances, and nuclear weapons. The major leaders who are discussed about are Stalin, Truman, Khrushchev, Mao, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. As well throughout the book examines many questions of the Cold War for example, Why was Germany divided?, Who started the Korean War?, and What made the Cold War last as long as it did?

This book was written by John Lewis Gaddis. Gaddis has been a History professor at Yale and Ohio University. As well he has held many visiting appointments at different Universities throughout the United States. Gaddis has written many books about the Cold War including his newest book The Cold War: A New History.

I think that this book had reliable and relevant information for my topic. It was written by a very qualified author, who has written many books before. Gaddis’s book did not just examine the American politicians; he also examined the politicians of the Soviet Union.

Heater, Derek. The Cold War. East Sussex, England: Wayland (Publishers) Ltd., 1989.

After reading this book I got good understanding of what lead the United States and the USSR starting the Cold War. One thing that I like about this book was that they compared the difference between communism vs. capitalism, the view from the United States, and the view from the USSR. The book also examined the different battles and/or wars that contributed to the start of the Cold War. Finally this book gave timeline of important dates through the Cold War.

I believe that this book would be a scholarly source because it was written by a qualified author and had to be approved by editors and publishers before it was published. Derek Heater has taught history at Secondary and Higher Education levels. He was the founder-Chairman of The Politics Association and the first editor of its journal, Teaching Politics. He has written widely on political ideas, citizenship, political education, and international politics.

I believe that the information in this book is reliable and relevant to my topic. This is because it was not written by an American or a Russian therefore it is not biased to either side. The author presents both sides of the issue to give the reader a clear understanding of each side and the whole issue as well.

Miller, David. The Cold War a Military History. London: Random House (Pty) Limited, 2001.

After reading this book I got a clear understanding of both the United State’s military and the USSR’s military during the Cold War. The author discusses how the global nuclear conflict controlled the United States, Soviet Union, and most of Europe. In Miller’s book, he gives suggestion that each military should have taken into order during the Cold War.

David Miller was the author of this book. Miller was in the British army for 36 years. He spent most of his career during the threat of the Cold War. Miller wrote this book as a result of his first-hand experience from the Cold War. He is also a freelance journalist and has published 25 other books.

I found this book very useful because it was written by a non American and non Russian therefore it is not biased. As well it covered the military of both the United States and the Soviet Union which I do not know very much about. It was interesting to find out more information on the subject. I think that this information in this book is reliable and relevant to my topic.

"Nuclear War." Encyclopedia Americana. 2006. Grolier Online. 28 Sep. 2006 <http://ea.grolier.com/cgi bin/article?assetid=0290750-02>.

This article discussed how the Cold War started between the United States and the USSR. It discussed the United States and the USSR to maintain large strategic nuclear forces and why it was necessary for each country to have several different nuclear weapons. In one section of the article it examined each of the countries strategies for avoiding a nuclear attack.

This article did not have an author labelled. Although there was no author to this article I still believe that this article was scholarly source because I found this article on an online Encyclopaedia database.

Even though this source does not have an author, I still believe that it is reliable and relevant to the information on my topic. This article was interesting to read because it gave a good understanding of the background information on the nuclear forces between the United States and the USSR.

Polmar, Norman. "Atomic FISH." Naval History 20.4 (2006): 29.

This article explores the different nuclear bombs / weapons that both the United States and the USSR were developing during the Cold War. The author discussed the different bombs and what and where they were used for. The article covered most of the years of the Cold War and what each country was developing.

This book would be a scholarly source because it was written by a qualified author and it before it was published approved by editors and publishers. Polmar is co-author of Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines (2004) and a regular contributor to Naval History.

I believe that this article has reliable and relevant information on my topic. It was interesting to read about the different nuclear bombs / weapons that both the United States and the USSR were developing during the Cold War. Although the information was good I am not sure how much of it I will need for my essay.

Roberts, Priscilla, D. The Cold War. United Kingdom: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000.

This book gave a clear understanding of the Cold War and what lead to the starting of it. What I found really interesting about the book was it gave a timeline of what happened between the United States and the USSR from November 1917 up until December 1991. Some of the events that were mentioned in the timeline were World War 2, the Korea War, and Cuba. This book examines the Cold War and the causes, consequences, and how close it came to starting a Third World War with the east against the west. Roberts also observed the Berlin crisis, Sino-Soviet relations, and ultimate collapse of communism and the Soviet empire.

This book would be a scholarly source because it was written by a qualified author and had to be approved by editors and publishers before it was published. Priscilla Roberts is a well qualified author because she is a Lecturer in History and Director of the Centre of American Studies at the University of Hong Kong. As well she is the assistant editor of the Encyclopaedia of the Korean War.

The information in this book seems to be reliable and I believe that it will be very useful for my essay because it covers a thoroughly background information and what lead to the start of the Cold War. This book one of many in the Sutton pocket Histories series which I believe is a creditable source that contains lots of valuable information.

Sewell, Mike. The Cold War. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

This book gave a clear understanding of the Cold War. It gave an excellent overview of everything that happened during the Cold War. It covered how the Cold War started, the battles or fights of the Cold War, and how the Cold War finally ended. The book also had good maps that showed when and where countries were invading other countries. This gave me a clear understanding of who invaded who during the Cold War.

The author of this book is Mike Sewell. The book was from a series called Cambridge Perspectives in History. This series has written various books on major periods of British and European History. I believe that is a reliable source of information because before it was published it had to be approved by the editors and publishers.

I believe that this book will add to my information for my topic because it is a reliable and relevant source of information. It gives me a broad range of information of everything that occurred during the Cold War. The author of the book is not American or Russia, therefore this limits how bias the source is.