The Long Detente : Changing Concepts of Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1950s-1980s

At defining the framework for a history of East-West relations between 1945 and 1991, mainstream historiography has habitually been resorting to “the Cold War”, often reducing it to the confrontation between two superpowers. This book challenges the pertinence of the Cold War concept and substitutes the framework of a “long detente” - energetically rehabilitated - for the years from 1953 to 1991.

The authors of the essays – an impressive group of young European historians of diverse backgrounds and perspectives - take the Old Continent as the heart of the analysis, making it not a passive instrument in the hands of the two superpowers, but rather a fully-fledged actor in East-West relations. Studying detente in its many facets (strategic, geopolitical, economic and social), the authors of the essays in the volume also refine the chronology and stress the interaction between foreign policies and domestic priorities, with implications for contemporary diplomacy as well.

By offering new, Euro-centered narratives that include both West and East European perspectives, the combined contributions of this volume point to critical inconsistencies and inherent problems in the traditional U.S.-dominated narrative of the Victory in the Cold War. Yet, rather than aiming at replacing this understanding entirely, the argument of a long detente demonstrates that this superpower narrative can, and needs to be, augmented with the plentitude of European experiences and perceptions. After all, it was Europe its peoples, societies, and states that stood both at the ideological and military frontline of the conflict between East and West, and it was here that the struggle between liberalism and communism was eventually decided.

"The book is first class scholarship with implications for contemporary diplomacy as well." - Thomas Schwartz, Professor of History and Political Science, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA