Cold War Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Historiography== {{Main|Historiography of the Cold War}} As soon as the term "Cold War" was popularized to refer to post-war tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, interpreting the course and origins of the conflict has been a source of heated controversy among historians, political scientists, and journalists.{{sfn|Nashel|1999}} In particular, historians have sharply disagreed as to who was responsible for the breakdown of Soviet–US relations after the Second World War; and whether the conflict between the two superpowers was inevitable or could have been avoided.{{sfn|Ambrose|Brinkley|2011|pp=789–799}} Historians have also disagreed on what exactly the Cold War was, what the sources of the conflict were, and how to disentangle patterns of action and reaction between the two sides.{{sfn|Halliday|2001|p=2e}} Although explanations of the origins of the conflict in academic discussions are complex and diverse, several general schools of thought on the subject can be identified. Historians commonly speak of three different approaches to the study of the Cold War: "orthodox" accounts, "revisionism", and "post-revisionism".{{sfn|Calhoun|2002}} "Orthodox" accounts place responsibility for the Cold War on the Soviet Union and its expansion further into Europe.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002}} "Revisionist" writers place more responsibility for the breakdown of post-war peace on the United States, citing a range of US efforts to isolate and confront the Soviet Union well before the end of World War II.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002}} "Post-revisionists" see the events of the Cold War as more nuanced and attempt to be more balanced in determining what occurred during the Cold War.{{sfn|Calhoun|2002}} Much of the historiography on the Cold War weaves together two or even all three of these broad categories.{{sfn|Byrd|2003}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page