Question

In American historiography, Marxist historians consider the Cold War an attempt by the U.S. to establish economic hegemony, while Revisionist historians blame individual personalities, namely Stalin and Truman. Might there be some other explanation for explaining the Cold War

Answer 1

Answer:

There sure is.

Explanation:

As Eric Hobsbawm righteous explains in The Age of Extremes neither the Marxist historians nor the Revionist ones are right. To start with: when Truman left the white house in 1953 the cold war hadn´t started properly. And Stalin died in the same year. Nevertheless they did partly shape the hostile environment (Truman doctrine) of the two superpowers after the war.

Anyway, Hobsbawm quite convincingly argues that it was exaggerated American fear of Russian agression that lead ultimately to the cold war. The initially Russian ideal of spreading communism over the globe was not seen as realistic any more by the Sovjet leaders, even before the second world war. And after it the Sovjet union was weaker than ever before. And Stalin knew it. So yes, in a sense individual personalities (Americans) are to blaim. But not mentioning Kennedy in this list is ignoring the fact that the main actors, like Kennedy,  ¨tapped their way though a dense cloud of incomprehension, confusion and paranoia.¨

Eric Hobsbawm