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One of Cold War bestsellers appears to be relevant today. Until President Reagan decided to challenge policies of detente, West was on the loosing side of the confrontation. It is not to say that Cold War ended, but rather to emphasize how important it was to focus on the right aspect of it. This book appears to provide important lessons for those who are interested in deeper dimension of the Cold War struggle. I think it is worthy to read this short review. I would recommend it.

“What is difficult to understand is that almost all of Western analysts missed the factor that made the Cold War unique among struggles: it focused on the war of ideas.”

The recommended book have merit, but as a former graduate student of Soviet history and historiography, the portion of the article quoted above is doubly preposterous. Shelves groan with books and articles about the war of ideas in the Soviet and Cod War periods. It would be impossible to study either Communism, Marxism, the Russian revolutionary movement, the Russian Revolutions and Civil War, Soviet history, politics, domestic or foreign policy, and even Soviet science without confronting this constantly. Second, how can it be claimed that no other struggles are over ideas? What does the author think drives Islamist jihad?

In his philosophy of history, Marx “discovered” that history is driven by objective material circumstances rather than ideas or human will. Thereafter, this thoroughly subjective Idea has driven Marxists to make revolutions and wars, vastly deform economies, micromanage millions of lives, and endeavor to change human nature itself. Marx had clear vision for the internal contradictions of ideas he opposed, but was blind to the glaring flaw in his own thought.