Theodore Hopf has been awarded the APSA Jervis-Schroeder Book Award and the Marshall D. Shulman Book Prize for his book, Reconstructing the Cold War: The Early Years, 1945-1958 (Oxford University Press, 2012). The Robert L. Jervis and Paul Schroeder Best Book Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to the author of the best book in international history, theory, and politics. The Marshall D. Shulman Book Prize is awarded every year for an “outstanding monograph dealing with the international relations, foreign policy, or foreign-policy decision-making of any of the states of the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe published the previous year. The prize is dedicated to the encouragement of high quality studies of the international behavior of the countries of the former Communist Bloc.” The award is sponsored by the Harriman Institute of Columbia University and presented in November at the ASEEES Annual Convention.
Robert Legvold in a review in Foreign Affairs (Council on Foreign Relations) wrote:
[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”1913″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image”,”style”:”width: 80px; height: 122px; float: left;”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]Three things make this book unusual. First is the impressive scale of the undertaking: it is the first volume in a planned trilogy dealing with the Cold War from beginning to end. Second, it treats theory as seriously as history. Finally, although Hopf’s historical research is extensive and original, he is not out to explain the Cold War’s sequence, dynamics, or turning points. Instead, he has plumbed Soviet political and cultural sources to reveal something more original: how the official reading of political realities during and immediately after Stalin’s rule, together with alternative readings that were subtly cultivated in cultural and academic institutions, accounted for the way in which the Soviet Union played its role in the early years of the Cold War. Hopf is a leading exponent of constructivist theory, and his trim, modified version of that approach brings a fresh perspective to why Stalin and his successors acted as they did in Eastern Europe and the developing world. However, as Hopf acknowledges, the theory contributes less to understanding the interplay with the United States and other major powers.
Theodore Hopf is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore and a member of PONARS Eurasia.
See Hopf's August 2013 keynote seminar on the Cold War and Soviet policies at the 75th Anniversary of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska institute).
Also see his article, Common-sense Constructivism and Hegemony in World Politics, International Organization, 67, pp 317-354, 2013 (subscription required).
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