At first glance, Norman Naimark's new book seems to be one more in a long line of books about the origins of the Cold War. The book's chapters cover the same years as Cold War narratives, the late 1940s. Stalin's actions and calculations, as well as those of the Soviet government, play a prominent role in the book. There are also chapters on such staple Cold War topics as the fate of Poland and the Berlin airlift of 1948, among others. Upon opening the book, however, one quickly understands that this book is not about the origins of the Cold War. As Naimark makes clear, this book examines Europeans’ attempts—in both the American and Soviet spheres of influence—to reconstruct their countries and simultaneously carve out some sphere of national self-determination.

What is remarkable, in Naimark's reading, is the degree to which European leaders more or less succeeded, given the post-war conditions of complete ruination and overwhelming political and military domination by the world's two superpowers. That success, he argues, has been lost in hindsight narratives that focus mainly on the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and the descent into hostility and division. To be sure, the United States looms large over Naimark's analysis of Stalin's calculations and those of the other main historical actors, but US actions are always in the background, not the foreground of analysis. This book is not about American-Soviet rivalry in Europe. Refreshingly, Naimark keeps his focus squarely on Europeans. Apart from Stalin, the main actors in this book are lesser known names in the standard Cold War narratives: Juho Paasikive in Finland, Alcide De Gasperi, Pietro Nenni, and Palmiro Togliatti in Italy, Władysław Gomułka in Poland, Ernst Reuther, the socialist mayor of west Berlin, and Karl Renner and Leopold Figl in Austria. As Naimark shows, these individuals played key roles in shaping the futures of their countries and the European continent.

By focusing on Europe and Europeans, Naimark decenters the usual post-war narratives. Apart from chapters on Poland and the events surrounding the Berlin blockade of 1948, most of the book examines Soviet actions in, or toward, areas of Europe left out of most post-war accounts, but areas arguably also important to Soviet strategic interests. In seven chapters, the author treats events that evolved in Finland; the Danish island of Bornholm, occupied for a year by Soviet forces; Yugoslavia, Albania, and the communist uprising in Greece; Soviet policies toward Italy and Poland; and the successful struggle for autonomy and neutrality in Austria. Even in the chapter on Poland, Naimark shows that despite Soviet domination, the communist leader, Gomułka, resisted complete sovietization to find a specifically Polish path toward socialism. While the story of the Berlin blockade is well documented on the Soviet-American level, Naimark provides a closer look at the officials in western Berlin and their resolute actions to resist Soviet pressure and to keep the Americans committed to the city.

Naimark agrees with John Gaddis about the inevitability of the Cold War, so long as Stalin led the Soviet Union. He does not deny Stalin's ideological view of the world. Still, the author emphasizes Stalin's flexibility and pragmatism. Stalin was willing to push where he thought he could, but carefully, trying not to provoke open conflict with the United States. Stalin did not believe Europe was ready for socialist takeovers, and he counseled communist leaders in Italy and France not to try to seize power. Initially, according to Naimark, Stalin did not want to see the continent divided into two armed and hostile camps. Stalin hoped for a postwar arrangement that would allow the USSR strong bilateral influence throughout a continent composed of coalition “people's” democracies. Although division is what occurred in the main, especially in Germany, Naimark stresses the counter-example of Austria. There, four-power occupation policies actually succeeded in creating a neutral de-militarized country. Analogously, Finland managed to maintain its internal autonomy, even though it shared a long border with the USSR and collaborated with German forces in the horrific siege of Leningrad. Denmark was able to regain its occupied island territory in exchange for assurances (later abandoned) of non-alignment. Naimark's Stalin is certainly driven by ideology. He is brutal and insecure, despite the extent of military-geographic influence he had achieved, but Naimark's Stalin is not a simple cardboard cut out. He is neither an aggressive revolutionary, nor merely a paranoid tyrant. In this reading, Stalin comes across as a complex, sometimes contradictory, but capable leader. This a thoughtful, well-crafted book. It provides a new look at an old topic.