Roosevelt's Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War

The premise that "the Cold War was not inevitable" launches this penetrating, personality-focused exploration of its WWII roots and the late 20th century conflict whose aftershocks are still being felt today. Costigliola (Awkward Dominion) is deft in his characterization of the Big Three: Churchill%E2%80%94boyish, flamboyant, and thrilled by armed conflict; Stalin%E2%80%94a piercingly intelligent former seminarian capable of merciless brutality for the sake of a cause; and FDR%E2%80%94the fulcrum, a blue-blooded trickster willing both to humor Churchill's nude effusiveness as a guest in the White House and win at Yalta the honest admiration of the insecure Stalin. With all the trappings of a dramatic HBO series (sex, intrigue, hierarchy, and global and historical resonance) Costigliola dutifully traces the reasons Roosevelt's vision of three (or four) world policemen committed to global stability failed to win out in the post-war near-term. After Roosevelt suffered a fatal stroke on the virtual eve of Allied victory, Churchill%E2%80%94grasping for relevance in the aftermath%E2%80%94delivered the Iron Curtain speech in Missouri; and Stalin, clumsily advancing violent suppression in Poland, grew resigned to isolation and saber-rattling in anxiety over the atomic bomb and Western brinksmanship. B&W Photos. (Jan.)